


Bold

by Slugmoon



Category: Dead by Daylight (Video Game)
Genre: Bathing/Washing, Blood Drinking, Blood and Injury, Canon-Typical Violence, F/M, Not Beta Read, Nudity, Original Character(s), Really got in my beauty and the beast feelings for this one forgive me, Rough Sex, So Bear With me, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex, wasn't supposed to be super romance oriented but it's heading that way fast
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-25
Updated: 2020-12-26
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:22:55
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,545
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27184462
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Slugmoon/pseuds/Slugmoon
Summary: It's rare that he pays enough mind to the other souls that inhabit the Fog to let his thoughts dwell on them. Outside of trials, he does not think of the mice. He thinks even less of the others like himself. But there is one that manages to capture his attention. She taunts him. Challenges him like no other whelp ever dared. The man that he once was wants to commend her.The demon that he is wants to break her.
Relationships: Evan MacMillan | The Trapper/Original Female Character(s), Kazan Yamaoka | The Oni/Original Female Character(s)
Comments: 33
Kudos: 91





	1. Challenger

**Author's Note:**

> It has been years since I've actually posted a fic. You have been warned. 
> 
> This is written with one of my OCs in mind, but I chose to leave the main character nameless and ambiguous for now to allow this to be somewhat approached the same as a reader-insert if you squint and tilt your head a lil. This is also a new style of writing for me. Something I'm experimenting with. So yeah!

Not often did he find himself gaining some semblance of respect for the other souls that inhabited the fog. Few of the killers had managed to earn it from him. Even less of the survivors stood out enough to even get close. 

But this one deserves some merit for being the first to piss him off to the point of irrationality. 

She is like a wild animal as she darts away from him time and time again. She ducks under a swing of his blade. Moves just barely out of reach of his grab. 

And she is _fast._ Quick like a fox and too aware to be caught off guard. He knows what she’s doing. She has a history of playing the decoy for her comrades. So obviously, he knows too well that the smarter decision would be to deny her the attention. Let her efforts be in vain and pursue the others that would obviously be weaker in terms of their evasion. He ought to cut them all down before they managed to secure their means of escape and save her for last just to drive home the point that he wasn’t some mindless beast that can be easily manipulated. He would hack her to pieces for thinking so. 

He stops in his pursuit of the woman. Watches her as she watches him with furrowed brows. The sheer _arrogance_ is enough to send him into a rage. He’ll make sure that she remembers how afraid she should be of someone like him. He’ll make her regret ever thinking herself equal enough to face him like this. A mouse like her ought to run from someone of his magnitude. How dare she challenge him? 

He feels his blood boil. Muscles tensing with unbridled rage, he trades his blade for his kanabo as he lets the fury envelop him like a shroud. He watches her flinch as he lets out his roar, but she holds her ground. 

A proud woman with a deathwish, he figures. He will grant it for her. 

Through his frenzy, his senses grow sharper. The scent of blood hangs in the air and he’s very much aware that the other rats are somewhere to his far right. He can see her even more clearly now. See the blood rushing through her very veins. Her heart pounds like a little drum in her chest. 

He would offer a chuckle if not for his unparalleled anger. The little bird is terrified beyond meaning according to her little pistoning heart. But still she maintains her brave face before him, waiting for him to make his move. 

He feints for her and she nearly jumps like a startled cat. 

As much it would be exhilarating to shatter every bone she has under his kanabo, he decides against it. The more prudent move would be to intercept the others. He would deny her the honor of martyring herself as she’s become so accustomed to. 

She objects, however. Takes a couple striding steps behind him and betrays just how suicidal she truly is. She calls after him, gaining his attention for only a split second. He should ignore her. He knows better, but he needs to answer her sheer audacity with some sort of retribution. So he humors her, maul in hand as he readies himself to strike a crippling blow to her side. 

The little thing is stronger than he originally thought, using her full strength to bring an entire locker down on his head. It’s enough to make him falter. It stuns him stupid for a half moment. He’s beside himself, nearly going feral as he rips the locker away and barrels forward. He sees her disappear around the corner, leaving the dark undertow of the dilapidated swamp shack in favor of the open darkness outside. He wouldn’t let her get away, other survivors be damned. 

She knows she can’t escape him out in the open like this. He wonders if that was the point. Give him bait so easily accessible and enticing that he has no choice but to take her up on the offer. She’s prudent enough to understand his ire and it makes him want to rip her apart the moment he catches up with her. 

She makes a fatal mistake however, running herself into a dead end. She’s cornered by a downed log far too big for her to climb. It’s pressed flush against the boundaries of their pen; the edge of their playing field. 

So she’s forced to face him, watching as he stops his mad dash just before her. His blood is singing. It calls for her own, and for a second he merely drinks in the sight. 

He’s reminded of her pride as she remains still as stone save for the light trembling of her balled fists. There’s something in that gaze that drags him back into lucidity. Makes him calm enough to be rational. The proud woman purses her lips after a few darting glances that confirm just how cornered she is. 

And she kneels.

She drops to her knees, ducks her head. He’s lucid enough to understand. This is an offering. 

Somewhere far in the distance, floodlights interrupt the darkness of the night sky. The other mice have achieved another generator. They’re that much closer to escape. They managed three during their altercation. She has served her purpose. 

And for what? He can’t help but wonder just why she goes so far for others who do not deserve her help or care. She could easily survive on her own. Their constant alienation has forced the woman to adapt and grow into a champion of survival. She could’ve easily evaded him had she acted with an ounce of self-preservation. But she acts recklessly to entice him. She fans her white tail like a doe and entreats her hunters to follow time and time again. He wonders if the other killers are prudent enough to see through her tactics. He has long suspected it, but now she confirms it with her own surrender. A silent request for his blade. 

He knows not the meaning of the squabbling between the prey. She has earned their ire and he doesn’t care to know the reason. What he does know is that he doesn’t care to allow her request for martyrdom. 

He calms his rage and lets his kanabo fall back into the darkness for favor of his blade. He doesn’t give her what she asks for. 

In an inane bout of curiosity, he takes the tip of his blade, tucking it just below her chin as he forces her to meet his gaze. 

While wildly contrasting with the native sensibilities of his home and culture, he admits that she does have a sweet face. Despite her hardened expression she’s grown so accustomed to wearing before him, he cannot deny that the elegant shape of her lips or the gentle slope of her nose. Yet it’s her eyes that hold him. Piercing as she watches him with a defiance that contrasts her gesture of submission. 

No, she isn’t as subdued as she wants people to believe. This is her plan. If he strikes her down, he would be catering to whatever desire she has in mind. He’s already decided against it, so he leaves her right there. 

* * *

  
  


He is completely ruthless after the encounter, and she knows it’s her fault for some reason or another. She’s failed and the others are paying for it, one by one. It didn’t matter if she bought them enough time to power the exit gates with three generators, he cuts them down as they finish the last two. 

He’s proving a point. She has _no_ control here. Never has. Never will. She cannot expect a hunter to act as she desires them to. He controls their game of cat and mouse. Not her. 

Point taken. 

She hears the last toll of sacrifice echo throughout the swamp and she knows her time of reckoning is nigh. There are no others to bide time for, so she has no choice but to aim to escape. She doesn’t even consider the hatch, knowing that her pursuer is probably pissed off enough to track it down and close it to add insult to injury. Entirely her fault, she knows. She poked the bear. So she goes for the gate instead. 

The silence is too uncanny after hearing the constant screams of terror and bestial roars of rage that had filled the darkness just minutes before. Her anxiety tortures her. She feels that he’s allowing her to fall into a false sense of security as she pulls the lever to open the gate. He’ll wait until it opens and pluck her right off her feet. Or maybe he won’t even bother with a sacrifice and slice her to bits right where she stands. She wouldn’t be surprised. It’s not the worst thing her audacity has gotten her. 

In all honesty, death by his hand wasn’t the worst of what has happened to her during her time in the fog. He was clean. Either your skull was smashed so quickly that you weren’t even aware that you were dying, or the shock of losing a limb to a clean cut from his blade would save you the trouble, ushering you gently into the cold darkness spurred by blood loss. 

Yet she still doesn’t feel all that great about being on the business end of neither blade or maul. So she puts a little pep in her step. 

Those long, crawling seconds of time standing before the exit gate would always be the worst of the trial. Moments away from a “good” ending. Many times she’s had victory snatched straight from her hands. Just at the finish line, her pursuer would close in on her like a shark following the scent of blood. Now she can't help but throw nervous glances over her shoulder for good measure. She will never take a knife in the back like that ever again. 

She spots him in the distance, barrelling towards her with a fury so potent that her panic nearly rises in her throat like bile. She forces herself to remain. The door’s almost open. He can’t catch her in time, right? 

She can hear his footfalls as the metal door squeals open. She slips between the sliver of an opening just as it becomes wide enough for her body. She swears that she feels the rush of wind that signals the swing of a blade, or perhaps it was his own hand grasping for her hair. Either way, she knows that she’s just barely evaded death. She sprints down the path, not even looking back to see the entity’s thorny tendrils blockade him from the path to safety. She doesn’t relish in her victory. All she can do is promptly get the hell out. 

* * *

  
  
  
  


He arrives at the conclusion that letting her slip through his grasp is the worst decision he’s made in a long time. 

It’s not often that he allows his mind to dwell on the mice. He wouldn’t let himself stoop to try to understand them in their insignificance. His own pride wouldn’t allow for it. But in that moment, he had been so thoroughly intrigued, perplexed, and absolutely _furious_ that the scene sticks for far longer than it should’ve in his mind. Memories of her gaze, eyes wide and white like the moon itself, struck him. Her lowered head. Her defiance. He couldn’t help but marvel at her: a walking contradiction. A fearful dove with clipped wings, standing her ground and facing her fate head on rather than turning tail. After being cruelly betrayed, she didn’t cry. Didn’t beg. Didn’t curse. Instead, she so politely asked him for an ending.

Majestic, oddly enough. A martyr.

The little woman was sharper than he thought. Slippery like an eel and it drives him mad the more he dwells on the memory of her escape. But he couldn’t continue to consider her arrogant. No, she was a formidable prey and she continues to prove it with each of their encounters. If anything, he finds himself annoyed by her own altruism. Hunts in which she played the role of his quarry have yet to be anything less than exhilarating, yet her recklessness for the sake of the undeserving others acts as a natural handicap. Were it not for that fact she would give him hunts that outshine all others. 

In his trials, he studies each of the mice. Searches for her face, hoping to catch another glimpse of the martyr from before. He’s eager to see it again. He wants her blood as much as he wants that gaze. But the entity isn’t so generous. It’s rare for two souls to cross paths so often on the hunting ground. Each trial closes with a mounting frustration left behind by the rage of having to cut down the same arrogant curs he’s been spoonfed since day one. Each trial leaves him with a burning need. A desire to see the bird once more. He racks his brain for the reason why. What was it in those eyes of hers? What is it that he wants to see again? 

It’s rare that he buckles. Too prideful to fully accept the entity in earnest. He acknowledges, but is still far from revering it as his new dark god like the others. He still attempts to hold on to his dignity. 

But just this once, he entreats it. Appeals to its dark curiosity. He gives an offering of a single dark feather from the crows that seem too unlike actual crows. He is unused to the practice: ages have passed since the last time he’d even uttered a prayer, let alone visited a temple or gave offerings. But the echoes of his memories don’t fully abandon him. He places it on a makeshift altar in his dwelling, sits seiza before it and waits.

* * *

  
  
  
  


The trial starts normally for her. As normally as the matches can get for her at least. She wakes alone in some abandoned corner of the farm. It’s unusually dark, and she has to strain her eyes to see even the edges of the sprawling cornfield before her. The moon hangs high as a sliver, just barely casting enough light for her to see. Yet, there’s no other choice but to move forward. No matter how much the overwhelming fear threatens to paralyze her, she doesn’t have room to bemoan her situation. 

She’s alone. No one would be having her back. So in turn, she must act accordingly. 

Not too long after waking she finds a generator and gets to work. She keeps her back to the boundary of their playing field in order to prevent any sort of sneak attack from behind. Her gaze is split into multiple directions, darting from the gen, to her left and right, to just over the machine further into the field. Not that she could see much in the darkness, but its a force of habit. This place has turned her into a wary animal. 

But her method isn’t as perfect as she’d like. A finger slips and the generator bellows loudly into the night. Sparks fly and she’s certain that the overhead lights flicker dimly. Now it’s certain that anyone with half a brain will know exactly where she is. 

Plan A is no longer viable, she assumes. So she settles for plan B. She goes into decoy mode. She’s fucked herself, but she can at least buy the others time. It seems that this has become the only way she can contribute to everyone’s survival. No matter how vehemently they denied her, she wouldn’t let them self sabotage. 

Or perhaps this insistence on helping is the only way she keeps herself from growing bitter. Bitterness takes energy she didn’t have to spend. Hell, she can’t even say she can bring herself to hate the killers anymore. All she feels now is raw fear. Unbridled agony and a longing for home that nearly incapacitates her every time she gets a subtle reminder that draws up memories of her life before. 

There’s no time for any of it now. Not when she’s expecting company soon. She quickly runs some tactics through her mind. She only has a handful of approaches she could take and all of which were purely dependent on whoever would come for her neck. Should she make herself scarce and make some noise somewhere else? Make a breadcrumb trail of ruckus for the killer to follow? Or would they understand her bait and opt to go for the others? She’s already had a couple of her pursuers call her bluff. Last time, the Oni thoroughly expressed that her shenanigans had an expiration date and her hunters weren't to be underestimated.

She curses under her breath, rises from her spot beside the machine and makes a break for the sea of cornstalks swaying in the breeze. 

Her intention to disappear amongst the crop ends up being for naught. She can hear the the approach of something big. Only a few seconds pass after she realizes that she’s just essentially walked into danger. The world goes silent save for her heartbeat and his stepping on a bundle of leaves. He matches her gaze and she realizes that she has _fucked up._

She barely escapes with her arm still attached to her body. Her skin screams as it’s split by the blade but her adrenaline goads her into a full on sprint in the opposite direction. She knows she has to think fast lest she wants the chase to end with her being a kebab. 

Her feet carry her across the field and straight to the old rickety house that stood in the heart of the farm. She barrels up the stairs under the cover of darkness, ascends the stairs and makes her way into one of the bedrooms. Her sights would’ve been set on the closet if it weren’t for the crucial fact that her adversary could quite literally sniff her out. She’s too obvious now to hide, and she can’t bank on her comrades to provide enough cover for her to patch herself up.. Ideally, she would disappear for long enough to get the damned gash in her arm stopped up and go on her merry way, but she knows that she won’t get an opening from him. She saw that red mask. Couldn't mistake it for anything else. This is her rematch against that big blue bastard and she’s certain that he’s gonna regard it as such. If his foul temper means anything, then she’s certain that he’s gonna be relentless this round. 

She knows she’s dangerously close to cornering herself again and she can’t expect that her luck will save her again a second time. She eyes the shuttered door of a closet but knows that it isn’t an option. The Oni is a bloodhound and her blood would surely give her away.

She eyes the window instead. 

* * *

  
  
  
  


For once, her guard had faltered. She essentially ran into him. Perhaps, it was the thick darkness that allowed him to go unnoticed for so long. Or maybe her attention was slipping. Either way, he managed to graze her and the scent of her blood was practically euphoric. 

She skitters into the maze of foliage that sprawled over the majority of the land in the sullen locale, darting though the front door out of his sight. She’s fast enough to put some distance between them, but his nose is sharp enough to keep on her trail. All he needs is just a drop of blood, and her wound runs freely enough for him to receive just that. 

His body is alight with anticipation. He knows that he will drain her dry before the trial’s end. Entity be damned, he _will_ have her. 

The trail leads him to the second story of the time-worn home. He ignores all the other scents of decay and age, the sweet, coppery scent luring him straight into a vacant bedroom. His eyes rove over the space, looking for the tell tale signs of her presence. He catches the dark spots of blood, just barely catching the moonlight filtering through the window. The trail leads right up to a pair of doors. 

He follows the scent, ripping the doors open so suddenly that they nearly fall right off their hinges. 

She’s not there. 

He searches the small empty space in an attempt to find the source of the strong scent of blood that fills the air. It’s strongest in this very spot but he sees nothing but old moth-eaten clothing. 

And a single scrap of sullied white cloth. Despite the darkness, he knows what the dark splotch that dirities it implies. His gaze would go from the small scrap in his hand, to the blood in the ground, to the open window. Sheer, pale drapes gently waft in the breeze. 

The man in him applauds her. He can’t help but be impressed by her clever ruse. She keeps exceeding his expectations time and time again, and he can only feel the anticipation for their next meeting grow exponentially by the moment. 

But the beast rouses to something dark and primal within him. It demands her blood as payment for her sheer audacity. In this one shining moment, he understands all too clearly just what it is he seeks from her. Because even when she offered her neck to him, slender and elegant like a dark swan, she had not completely deferred to him. Her surrender was a means to an end. An element to a larger plan. Her eyes betrayed just that very sentiment, that her spirit was undaunted. That she would have the last laugh. 

It’s her complete and total submission he hungers for. He wants to remind her of her place. That she should be humble in the face of something like him. Her eyes have haunted him for far too long, and now he must answer this desire one way or another. 

He manages to contain himself. He’s no longer thinking about winning the trial. No, the other mice could scamper to safety for all he cared. He’s reserving this red hot fury for the one and only. He follows the next possible trail, lighter and less obvious as if she tried her best to stem the flow of blood, to the open window. She must’ve used the slope of the roof underneath it and shimmied herself down to the ground for a hasty retreat, the clever girl. 

He drops down to the ground just before the house and tries his best to follow the trail, but he knows that he can’t rely on it for long. If she’s as smart as she’s making herself out to be, then she knows that her best chance at survival is to stop the blood as soon as possible. This is what the diversion was for he assumes. 

Soon enough the trail goes cold. She managed to slip out of his grasp again. 

* * *

  
  


It’s too close for comfort. It’s one thing to be nearly ambushed. Quite literally another to run straight into the arms of one's killer. Is she really that out of it? Is she tired? Perhaps her fatigue is finally catching up to her. 

She swallows the agony and makes her way to the crumbling butchers shack. It’s her least favorite place to be, never herself being one to be able withstand the sight of violence unto animals. She likes cows too much to be anything less than uneasy about the graveyard the farm has become. She wonders about how it must’ve looked before it became a husk. Was the grass green? Did the cows openly graze in open pastures like the ones on the cheese commercials? She’ll never know. 

She hunkers down against a wall, huddled just underneath a window just for the sake of an easy exit. Her wound isn’t bad, but it’s too deep to ignore. Her arm becomes practically unusable thanks to it. Lifting it is out of the question, every time she even bothers to move it she’s greeted with a stinging pain. So she refrains. 

She’s yet to get used to the process of patching herself up. Before the fog, she had never been a fan of hospitals or check ups. Never been a real fan of stitches, but here she’s learned that she doesn’t have much of a choice. She has to drive the needle into her very own flesh and it never really gets any easier.

She holds her breath as she works to mend herself, hoping that she managed to give herself enough time to pull herself together. This time, she’s not lucky enough to have a medkit on hand to do a quick patch job. The most she can do is rip a strip of cloth from her own cropped tee shirt as neatly as possible, and fumble to wrap it around her bicep to the best of her ability. It’s not something easily done with one hand, but she manages. 

But just as she tightens the makeshift bandage, she hears someone enter the cowshed and her heart _sinks._ Either killer or fellow survivor, she isn’t in a spot that she’s ready to meet either with her so vulnerable and open right now. She hoped that she could at least get her bearings for a moment and figure out her course of action, but she now has to make herself scarce. 

She hears footsteps pad on the concrete flooring of the shed. Big ones, by the sound of it. She’s in full blown panic mode as she struggles to figure out just how she can slip out without garnering his attention. Even if she were to slip through the window, his keen eyes would catch her from this angle. Right now her only saving grace was that she had slunk behind some metal barrels of _god knows what_ that ended up being the only thing breaking his line of sight. 

She hears the demon inhale, drawing a deep breath through his nose, and exhale. She knows she’s made a mistake. Cover be damned, if she stays put she’ll be a sitting duck for him. 

So she springs into action, but just as she rises to quickly vault from the window, she understands her honest mistake as she feels an iron grasp snatch her back by the shirt. He’d closed the distance between them so swiftly, she hadn’t even noticed how close he truly was until he was upon her. 

He kicks the metal railing in the center of the shed to the side, the very same railing she assumed held livestock in their pens, or even guided them to their eventual slaughter in the farm's hay day. The metal seems too flimsy under the power of his foot; it moves easily under his brute force the same way she does. She’s thrown to the hard ground, just barely able to catch her fall. Reflex prompts her to use both hands, but her body reminds her how stupid an idea that is. Her arm reels in protest and she can’t help but yelp. 

He stands over her, blade clutched firmly in hand with a silent promise. She doesn’t have time to even consider escape. He’s soon kneeling over her, uncomfortably close especially since she flips over onto her back. Her instinct demands she protect herself. Guard herself with her arms despite knowing that the blade can cut through them just as easily as it did the rest of her. But his free hand moves for her wrist. The sharp clang of metal meeting stone reverberates through the shabby building and she realizes with an overwhelming dread that he has _thrown the sword to the side._

_Not again,_ she thinks. She’s expecting the worst as both of his hands find her slender wrists. She feels as weak as a child in his hold. It’s too easy for him to pin her wrists to the ground above her head. His knees are on either side of her as he stills her flailing body. Her voice becomes a lump in her throat, even as they both still in that one shining moment of silence. He stops, towering over her as he watches her through that unfeeling darkness of his mask. His breath is labored, his chest nearly heaving with each moment. This can’t be from strain, she realizes. 

She’s slow to understand, but even once she does, she’s still paralyzed. 

He uses one hand to restrain. His other goes for her chin, framing her face and forcing her to look straight. Look at him. He’s watching her so closely that she begins to fear the worst. This is more than just basking in victory. Why must he revel in her misery? Why couldn’t he just kill her normally? 

His nails dig into the flesh just at the junction of her neck and jaw. Claws, more like. They press into her skin, and she panics as the stinging pain blooms across her skin when he drags them down. Just deep enough to draw blood. 

Despite her desperate attempts to wriggle her wrists free, his hold on her doesn’t budge. The panic becomes just that much acerbic within her as he leans down. He takes a handful of her hair, yanking her head to the side to expose her vulnerable neck. His breath comes as steady, warm gusts against her and she chokes back a sob. Or perhaps it’s a subdued scream that roils in her throat. In her many trials and many deaths in this realm, it’s not often that she experiences the gnawing feeling that claws at her insides now. Fear becomes less potent once you understand what awaits you after your demise. She knows dread all too well. Dread of another trial. The reluctance to move deeper into the darkness for fear of that very promise of pain that came with being spotted by a predator. That is the type of fear that’s become normal for her. 

But what she feels now is enough to rip her soul to shreds. It’s what animals feel when locked in the jaws of something far larger and stronger than them. Potent fear of the unknown. The fear of the first death that promised something uncertain and horrible. It’s enough to remind her that no matter how nimble and aware or noble she may try to be, this is what she is when stripped bare. Helpless. Powerless. 

She feels teeth pressing into her, making their mark so quickly that the sharp pain startled a squawk out of her. She writhes against his body but it holds firm, his grip on her hair never relenting for even a moment, her wrists are let free, but her fists mean nothing. The most she gets as a response to a well placed wrap on his temple is a tighter grip on her hair. She hisses. Lets out a yell and feels herself become something other than herself. 

He gorges himself, profanely lapping at the blood seeping from the wound he’s made. She feels nauseous under the feeling of his tongue traveling in generous swipes up the length of her neck. He bites again and a sob manages its way out of her. But he doesn’t care. Doesn’t even flinch, instead opting to greedily feed. 

It’s not long until she’s feeling the lightheadedness that comes with blood loss. Her body grows weaker with each passing moment. Yet, even through her delirium she wonders why he toys with her. Why the tentative bites when he could very well just slice her throat and gorge himself happily? 

She can’t even grasp an answer, mind going blank as he presses her lips to her throat and steals as much from her as he possibly can. Her mind swims as she squirms, her feeble attempts to limply push him away amounting to nothing. It’s not the worst way to go, she admits to herself. There are more painful alternatives, like being eviscerated or having her limbs hacked from her body. This is a more peaceful route. Her body feels light like a feather. She’s cold but he’s oddly warm despite his unearthly blue skin. Hot almost, like a furnace. 

Oddly enough, she finds herself _trying_ to focus on the pain rather than the perverse feeling of his tongue and lips against her. It’s more gentle than what she expects from a demon that gorges himself on the blood of his enemies. Or perhaps, it’s her expectation of violence that leaves her surprised. She expected certain evisceration. To be ripped to shreds as he ate her whole like the demons that featured in folk tales and horror stories did. Now that she thought about it, she can’t recall something like this happening to anyone in her trials. A couple times she’s caught him swiping his tongue up the length of his bloodied blade after he’s killed. He may hack an arm off and hold it just above his mouth as he drinks the crimson straight from it. 

But this is different. It’s _wrong._ He was drawing it out. Making a point even, but he could very much do that without whatever _this_ is. This makes her skin burn with something other than pain. This wakes something deep within her that hasn’t budged since entering the fog. Something warm, fuzzy and downright debased. 

He'll freeze when he hears it, the little sound she’s not even aware that she made until after she’d made it. She hadn’t even recognized that she was feeling what she was feeling, but once it’s clear she’s mortified enough to kill herself right on the spot. He parts from her, hovering to stop and watch for long seconds that stretch on for too long. 

His veins are alight with an unearthly glow. The red glare is a familiar sight. He’s at full power, ready to unleash his ghastly fury on the other survivors and she only has herself to blame for it. It doesn’t matter how much time they’ve had to work on their escape during this small interlude, she was sure that the scramble that would follow would be a bitter and long fight for them. 

But she doesn’t have the energy to dwell on it for long. She’s so drained that she can’t even bear to keep her eyes open. She feels so cold and light that it’s far too easy for her to let the world slip into darkness. Even the red gaze eventually fades into black. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



	2. Birdwatching

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> She's a precious gift. A rare bird. Kazan finally takes what he's earned. What he's owed, even.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Non-Con CW. Beware. I'm a bit rusty when it comes to writing this. And dw its not always gonna be like this between them.

The taste of her blood still lingered on his tongue far after the entity collected the final soul he offered of the trial. He could still feel its hold on him, its very presence leaving his body coursing with power. He understands the entity now more than ever. It was very much pleased with him to have answered his prayer with such a gift. 

Even then he can still feel her little warm body underneath his, her weak hands pushing against him in her laughable attempts at freedom. Flesh so soft but a will so unbroken that even when he sucked the life from her, she didn’t even so much as utter a scream. But with the more blood she spilled, the more her reality made itself known. No matter how much she turns that hard gaze upon him, they both know how fragile the human body can be. 

He saw it himself as she grew weaker and weaker, delirium making her sweet and pliant in his hands. Her warm breath escaped in weak little puffs as she merely held on to him despite her earlier attempts to get away. Her face grew gentle and the noise she made sent fire up and down the length of his body. Everything about her in that moment entreated the baser instinct within him he’d long forgotten. He still is grateful that he’d abstained from merely killing her as he initially intended. He couldn’t even bring himself to be ashamed by the warmth that the act had ignited within him. If given the chance he’d do it again, sacrifice be damned. 

The moment the memory haunts him to the point of restlessness that persists even in the moments of calm between trials, he knows action must be taken. 

He doesn’t have the same luck as before with the offering. The Entity ignores his entreaty, making it clear that more must be done for his simple wish to be granted. More blood, he supposes. She is a reward for his sheer display of power. He must deliver more to the dark god in earnest if he hopes to taste her again. 

So he does. 

He cuts down one whelp after another with brutal efficacy and sacrifices every single soul to the dark deity in hopes that his request is granted. As he works he quiets all other thoughts outside of the pursuit, but after each trial she returns to him. Traitorous imaginings of both body and blood that worsen with time taunt him and leave behind a mounting frustration in their wake that have him bordering madness. 

So naturally, when the fog bordering his ancestral home opens up before his very eyes, his interest is piqued. Any change is welcome in the case of it helping to mitigate the incessant wandering thoughts. The Entity bids him to follow. It wants to show him something, so he obeys. 

A strange pull is all he has as a guide. Something tugging on the edges of his consciousness guides him down the dark path. He walks and walks until his woods are no longer his woods. Seldomly does he venture out into the dark, interconnected paths that ran like an arterial network through the fog. Too much is left to the whims of the Entity for him to expect to get anywhere, not that there’s anywhere he wants to be aside from his dwelling. But this time the Entity begs to differ. 

And it’s very much right. It leads him to a stream, far from his end of the woods. Shallow and gentle, with moonlight being the only thing to illuminate the dark water enough for him to see it. But the discovery pales in comparison to the soul that chose to bathe in it. 

The Entity is a generous deity indeed. Give great results and receive great rewards, he figures. This is a gift in turn for the bloodshed. There’s a strange rush within him, as if his blood is humming in anticipation at the mere sight of her. From his spot in the treeline he can see her completely thanks to the ample moonlight. There’s no doubt that it’s his little bird, her frame being unmistakable despite the distance between them. His gaze is greedy, drinking up the entirety of her body as she takes her birdbath. Undulating breasts that tremble with each movement. Thighs that promised softness and a gentle dip at her waist that opens into perfect hips. He thinks about how nicely all of her will fit into his hands and he feels something deep within his body stir. 

She’s let her guard down completely, despite being alone. He wonders about this place. Wonders just how far he and his cohorts could go in these inbetweens. He hadn’t been under the impression that they had free reign, and she certainly seems comfortable enough. But this makes him reconsider. Perhaps there are still places in this deep dark forest left to be discovered. 

He starts planning his approach. The woman is unaware but not dull. She’ll dart the moment she sees him, and while in an enclosed pen, his chances of catching her were far lesser; here in the great sprawling dark wood he knows she has the advantage. His approach will take more thought, but he’s undaunted. 

In his observance he spots something blue fluttering in the light breeze to his right and he can’t help but smirk behind his mask. His generous bird has been kind enough to give him an opening. 

  
  


* * *

  
  


There are still so many secrets in the fog that not even the oldest among them even knew of. She was sure of it. The little hovel she found here by the stream had gone largely unnoticed by both killer and survivor alike. It’s become her little sanctuary, where she comes after trials to wash away the blood and pain that come with victory in trials. Or the fear and terror that come with failure. 

She’s learned how to appreciate the small gifts. Little blessings in disguise. Who would’ve known that something as simple as a quick bath would become something so cherished for her? It is almost ritualistic, how much she relies on the stream to meditate and bring her mind back to something remotely close to balance. She bathes and thinks about memories of the past and things don’t seem as bad as they were. Sometimes, she’s able to even  _ hope.  _

Because this wouldn’t be forever. She couldn’t let this be her forever. 

Eventually all great things come to an end. As much as she wants to stay for longer, she tries not to linger in the water for too long. It only took one close call of her being called into a trial indecent for her to be reminded of her situation. Last thing she wants is to be summoned in her birthday suit. 

She leaves the water and nears the small fire she’s made along the shore, not too far from the line of trees that thickens into a dense wall of foliage in some pockets. The warmth is welcomed, her not having been lucky enough to find something like a blanket or a towel during her victorious trials. Sometimes they were allowed to bring trophies back if they escaped, but so far, she hasn’t managed to find anything so valuable. 

So she settles for air drying by her small fire, and once the water has mostly fallen away, she goes for her clothes. 

Which aren’t where she left them. Or anywhere for that matter. 

Almost immediately she feels her heart sink. Her panic nestles itself squarely in her stomach as she recalls that there is never a breeze strong enough to move things in this forest. It always remained gentle and inoffensive. This was new. This isn’t mere coincidence. 

She’s not alone and her suspicion is confirmed almost immediately. 

The Oni strikes fast, intercepting her hasty retreat just as quickly as it began. Her reaction had been swift but his was just that much faster. Now she struggles in his arms, all too aware of her naked body against his. 

No, there will be no escaping this one, she knows. Not after she’s borne herself to him during that trial. She should’ve expected it. The last trial ended too oddly for her to merely dismiss it as a fleeting whim of his. Not with that gaze bearing down on her like that. Not when he toyed with her, his lips and tongue against her skin when there should’ve been only teeth and blood. Not when there was none of the rage and violence that he was normally prone to. Something about him has shifted regarding her, and she should’ve known better than to ignore it. 

He holds her still. Waits for her to stop struggling before he even makes a move. Her skin burns at each point of contact but once more, she finds herself in an immovable hold. She can’t free herself, no matter how much she scratches and pries at his arms. 

The sharp, desperate demand to let her go is met with a dark chuckle. A sound she wasn’t even aware he could still make. Her cries fall on deaf ears as he lets a hand find the smooth plane of her belly. 

This solidifies her suspicions. Because oddly enough, after their encounter her body didn’t ache the same way that came with dying as a sacrifice. In fact, she hadn’t died at all. Her body sported the same wounds that she’d bled out from. The Entity normally mends the body of its dire wounds upon death. The ache would linger. Maybe some bruises would remain. But for the most part, she was whole. 

He had not killed her, and it unsettled her the more she thought about it. So of course, when Kate hit her with the accusation of essentially  _ feeding  _ him during another trial, she knew that this would be her constant lot in life until she’s freed from this place. It’s happening again. It will continue to happen, and there is absolutely nothing she can do about it. She has become the apple of someone’s eye again and she craves death because of it. 

The armor adorning his body presses uncomfortably into her back, but it’s not painful. He’s not squeezing the life out of her and she’s grateful for that at least. He only lets his free hand roam over all it can, his claws tracing featherlight trails along her hip.he tortures her like this, squeezing and groping parts of her body she tries to keep hidden. Her breasts don’t escape his attention. In fact, he seems to be fascinated with them, leaving her to hang her head in mortified shame as she trembles under his exploratory touches. He pinches her and makes her gasp. Squeezes her nipple between two clawed fingers and she wrenches her eyes shut to withhold tears. A shiver runs through her body despite the honest distaste and she’s unsure if it’s disgust or honest betrayal from her body again. Agonizingly enough, she can already feel the traitorous warmth. 

But before the shame even hits her, she’s shoved forward. Just barely able to break her fall with her hands, there’s no time for her to even process what’s happening around her. He’s upon her in a fraction of a heartbeat, brutish hands already making to restrain her and pin her to the hard forest floor.

In that moment, she becomes as wild as the very animals shed been compared to and treated as in this merciless fog. Stripped bare, soul exposed and raw, she becomes  _ something  _ else. Something that screams, yells and curses at him as she kicks back at the body behind her. It all means nothing: he’s like stone, immovable and unyielding, as he pins her by the neck like an unruly cat. 

First go the bindings that hold the armor about his waist. She lies there in horror as he disrobes, watching as the thick rope and metal disc protecting his stomach are thrown to the side. It takes what feels like ages, probably because the armor is elaborate with all its straps and pieces. But even so, she isn’t allowed a single opening to free herself. 

The thigh guards follow, falling with a thud into a heap on the ground. Her heart beats chaotically within her, the fear acerbic within her very veins. She thinks about how much easier this would be if she merely fainted from the stress, but she knows that this will have the same ending as all the other times. She has never been that lucky. 

His fascination leads him to her ass first. Straight to the point, he gropes generous amounts of her warm flesh. She can’t see him, but she knows the feeling of being scrutinized all too well. To her horror, his greedy gaze roams over everything she had to offer. Even in her unfortunate encounters with a killer with similar intentions, she’d never been so exposed. This is different and she has yet to know why. 

Now freed from as much of his restraints he had patience to remove, he parts her thighs with such concise force that she doesn’t even have room to resist. A well-placed knee between her legs keeps them from clamping shut and she lets out a full sob at the sensation of invasive fingers dipping right between her now exposed womanhood. He pokes and prods at it first, testing the water with a gentle trailing finger that catches the very secret she’s been trying to keep since those featherlight touches from before. 

He backs off just enough to flip her onto her back, restraining her by the neck once more as he parted her legs for ease of access. His finger grows bolder, dipping further between her folds as she attempts to wriggle her hips away from the invasion. At first, he tolerates it simply because he’s more concerned about catching the nectar that spills from her core. But she grows too unruly for his liking and she’s answered with a tightening iron grasp around her neck that shocks her stupid. A sharp reminder of how easily she could be snapped in two by him. Or how easy it would be for him to steal her very breath. 

She stills just enough for him to finally plunge the digit through her opening. He lacks restraint, driving it in to the knuckle as he relishes in her overwhelming heat. It’s not as painful as she needs it to be. She doesn’t want it to feel good so that she’s left to fight back the warmth for the sake of her own dignity. She’d rather the agony than to have a replay of that mortifying moment back in the cowshed. 

He’s relentless however, establishing a pace that knocks the very breath from her. He’s gentle, despite the claws, careful to not be so erratic so that he hurts her. It’s enough for him to simply watch her expressions as they dance between hatred, horror, and reluctant pleasure. 

Who knew his little bird would be such a whore for him? So cute as she tries her best to maintain face and keep her expression from slipping into that same gentle bliss from before. She tries her damndest to not show him what her body’s already betrayed, biting her lips in an honest attempt to lock away that sweet voice of hers. He’d wrench it out of her, one way or another. She’ll be giving him her sweet song, chanting his name in praise as he skewers her with his cock. 

She dares to resist him despite the obvious pleasure written on her face. She offers him a sobbing plea instead as she tries once more to lock her legs together and shut him out, but he cares not for her tears. He heard the hitch in her breath as he pressed something sacred within her. Watching the knee jerk reaction of her hands flying down to his in order to stop it from going further, he presses again and watches her tremble. He can’t help the low rumble of satisfaction in his throat as he watches her unravel. She openly cries for him, yet it’s not pain that spurs the tears. She knows that she’s lost. There’s nothing left but for her to reconcile with her place. 

He doesn’t spoil her too much, his cock too demanding for him to continue coaxing her. As fun as it is to watch her squirm and deny what her body brazenly accepts, the fire in his hips demands to be sated. He cannot recall a time that this bestial urge had him so firmly by the collar that it couldn’t be denied. Normally, it’s easy for him to muffle it. He lusts for blood more than he does for body, especially more so since his departure from his previous life. But this rabbit of a woman has enticed something within him. That gaze of hers had been a challenge that not even death could snuff out. 

After what seems like an age, he finally unveils his fully erect manhood. It springs when freed from the confines of his pants and he wastes no time, locking her body in place between his knees as he towers over her. Only horror comes close to what she feels when faced with his impossible girth. It’s too big. So hard, that she could practically see it throb under her scrutiny. 

Panic reignites the instinct within her. She moves with a futile desperation as she tries to scramble from under him. In all her struggling, she only manages to get herself flipped back on her stomach,being pressed into the ground as he nearly crushes her with his massive body. A hand encircles her throat, the other going for her mouth and muffling the scream that comes as a result of feeling his cock pressed so firmly against her ass. He is too close to her vulnerable center, but the most she can do is try to mitigate the pain she knows will come. There would be no running this time. 

His member drags along the soft peach of her behind and she tries not to think of its size. His fingers already left her feeling full enough, so she can only imagine what his cock will do to her. She can only lie and wait for the eventual intrusion, body tense and on edge despite her knowing that things would go smoothly if she’d only relax. 

After parting her thighs just enough with a hand, he guides himself to her wet hole. His head kisses it gently first, and she can feel it throb as he ran it along her slick folds. Her heart stutters and she rips a handful of grass straight from the ground as she dreads the worst. 

Then he gives it to her, fully and completely. Without mercy, he slams into her with a fury that solicits a strangled squawk that doesn’t even sound like it came from her. The stretch is too big. She wants to scream. To cry and curse him, but the most she offers are a few silent tears as he drives himself in halfway before her tight walls stop him. She’s too narrow for him now, but he’s undeterred. Withdrawing until only the head remains, he stops, grabs her by the hips, and drives himself as far as he is allowed. He pushes in with conviction until nothing remains between them. He pulls out, dives back in, and sets the standard for his brutalizing pace. 

For moments, she is breathless. Left floating in space as she’s rapt with an odd mixture of agony and bliss she does  _ not  _ want. She’s too full. He presses against all of her so completely and his heat is overwhelming. She can hardly breathe. And while the splitting of her core remains at the forefront of sensation, she can’t deny the bubbling warmth on its heels. 

For what seems like hours he ruts into her like an animal, breath coming in warm, labored huffs against her cheek as he moves. She can’t help the whimper that escapes her after a particularly sweet stroke, a reaction she’s certain doesn’t go unnoticed. Her body begins to relax enough to accommodate: her cavern has finally started to fit his shape and she’s absolutely disgusted by the idea of her pussy actually accepting this. But she can’t deny that she’d rather pleasure than pain. She figures that she ought to be grateful that he cared enough about her comfort to prepare her before. It’s obvious what he wants from her: something more than just his own primal urge to be sated. He wants her to fall into the same frenzied madness he's found himself in. He wants them to come together like wretched animals in heat. When she finally slips and gives him the sweet sound he’s been craving since that trial, her walls giving a little squeeze as a wave of pleasure rips through her body, she feels him unravel. 

A large hand slips from her mouth and retreats underneath her hips. “Please don’t.” She pleads, but his calloused fingers are already teasing her, rubbing tantalizingly slow circles that send sparks through her hips. She gasps, her pussy squeezes him, and his hips roll into hers, savoring the blissful sensation. 

He’s all but pistoning into her now and her pussy revels under the abuse. The pain has long since melted away and now she’s forced to reconcile with her body’s own compliance. Pants escape her lips as he shakes her under the force of his hungry thrusts. He’s carving out his own space within her, and soon he manages to hit that sweet spot that leaves her shaking. 

He savors the spasming of her walls, grunting his pleasure into her ear as he continues to pound away at her. Her voice comes easier now, and she’s given in with resisting. Her mind slips, and in the moments of lucidity in which she’s not overwhelmed by the onslaught of sensation, she figures that at least she enjoys it. Rather this than the constant cycle of pain she’s fallen victim to. 

If anything, this was the best sensation she’s felt since arriving here. It’s the closest to bliss she’s felt. The circumstances aren’t ideal, but her body revels under his touch and that’s a win in itself, isn’t it? 

His cock greedily searches within her and she can’t help the arch in her back as her hips desperately angle to meet his own. Now she can barely fight for her own breath let alone her sanity and dignity. She doesn’t have it in her to question whether it’s right for her to give in to her body’s demands and become so eager. It’s a big fat catch 22 to her. Resist and suffer now, or enjoy and suffer her thoughts later. 

The pace he set has finally begun to buckle as he nears his end, and she feels the coil within her tighten as he unleashes his final round of shaking thrusts into her. She’s mewling, hips squirming as she’s overwhelmed by the unparalleled sensation of being thoroughly fucked into the ground. He links his arms around her body as he gifts her with greedy thrusts so deep that she feels him press against her womb. She no longer sounds like herself but she can’t bring herself to even be ashamed. Not with him also giving his own series of grunts and huffs behind her that only fanned her flame. She wasn’t alone in being vocal, at least. 

Her peak hits her full force, her legs trembling as her muscles tighten around his girth. He matches her own whining cry with a roar as her spasming walls coax his own climax from him, riding out the orgasm with erratic, desperate thrusts that leave her keening. He’s holding her close, nearly squeezing the life out of her as he fills her pussy with spurt after spurt of his warm seed. 

Then, there’s calm. 

Their labored breaths mingle together as their bodies come down from their mating frenzy. Their shared warmth is oddly comforting to her, probably because now in their stillness she can feel the cool, gentle breeze against the skin that isn’t being swaddled by his warm body. She’s covered in so much sweat that she’s certain that it would be enough to chill her to the bone had he not been holding her so close. 

Moments of calm pass before he shifts. He finally lifts himself so that she can finally breathe a little easier without his oppressive weight pressing her into the forest floor. But he doesn’t go far, instead hovering over her as he gained the strength to move. 

He must’ve been spent. She couldn’t even bring herself to budge from where she lay. The most she musters is turning just enough to see that immovable mask staring back at her. He takes her by the shoulder. He wants her to face him fully, and her body is too tired to resist him. She’s rolled onto her back, body on display for him as he admires his handiwork. 

He’s absolutely enraptured by the view, her skin glistening with sweat in the dim light. She moves to cover herself, but he doesn’t let her continue to hide; not when he’s already explored her innermost secret. Even then as he pins her wrists once more he could feel her pulse throbbing through the little veins running up the length of her arms. The primordial beat, so strong and frantic that it nearly fills the space between them as she could do no more but stare up at him with wet, pleading eyes. 

This is the look that nearly makes him buckle. The man in him nearly falls to the unyielding will of bestial instinct and he restrains the urge to take her once more right that instant. It’s the look he finally recognizes as the trophy he’s sought after since their encounter in that dark swamp. What she should’ve given him instead of the challenge. Complete and total submission. Has he broken her? Or has she merely allowed herself to yield to him and the promise of pleasure? He doesn’t care so long as she understands her place. 

Desire threatens to spur him into action once more, but he forces it far from the forefront of his mind. He leans back, shifting his weight to his knees as he finally parts from her. He parts her legs, admiring the mark of their deed as it spills from between the quivering lips of her core. How ephemeral, this moment. Her expression flickers to that of obvious distrust. Wariness. He knows she’s lucid enough to be afraid now. Yet he no longer hungers for her blood nor her life. No, this is a different case. 

She wants to wrench her thighs shut, but his iron grasp prevents her. But before long, before she even has the time to panic and dread what is to come, he releases her. 

She clams up the moment he steps away from her, but her eyes never leave him. She watches him as he tucks himself back into his pants, unwilling to let her guard down not that there’s much she could do should he set his sights on her again. She doesn't even think she’ll be able to run as effectively after what he’s done to her. 

Yet he seems to show little interest in her now as he redresses. Not even a glance is thrown back in her direction as he dons his thigh guards once more. It’s as if she isn’t even real. Tangible. 

In a bout of insanity that only grows louder with the passing moment, she feels… Used. Worthless. 

Perhaps, something within her has finally cracked. She feels her own creeping madness that’s been itching at her from the inside coming to a head, manic and tempestuous in its demands to be realized. Fury. Misery. A desire for something she could not name. She feels it in the pit of her belly as she watches him, tightening in an anxious little knot that threatens to snap. 

A shaking breath escapes her as this something threatens to boil over. 

She is not to be cast aside. 

While the rational voice within her begs and screams that this is the one she  _ needs  _ to cast her aside, trying to reason that the attention of the likes of him will only grant her misery, her fury begs to differ. She would not be meek and forgotten now that he’s enjoyed the fruit that she had to offer. Dammit, she will not be like  _ trash  _ to him. 

Because she’s been cast aside by her comrades. Cast aside by God. This one  _ will  _ look at her. He will acknowledge her. For what, she didn’t know. 

In a bout of insanity, she rises to her feet, almost as if she’s forgotten her pain and fear. No, she only has rage left in her now, making her body hot. Making her forget the chill and that she was still as naked as the day she was born. She rushes him, delivering a shove with all her weight that nearly takes him off guard enough to throw him off balance. He turns to her, gaze almost as inquisitive as it is annoyed by her audacity. He hardly reacts to the first few blows, and he’s reminded of how small and weak she truly is. Her punches mean nothing to his immense frame. But they are sharp enough for him to feel them, so he snatches her by the forearm and holds her still enough to be observed. 

Then he sees it. That fury swimming in her eyes through the belligerent tears. The challenge is back full swing, and he nearly goes giddy with maniacal glee. If only she could see the grin that splits across his lips. She dares to raise a hand to him. She dares to stare at him with such  _ fury.  _ She is absolutely  _ ravishing.  _

But he composes himself, because he can feel the gentle start of dark tremors that heralded the beginning of a new trial. His time is nearly up, so he’ll have to postpone her second lesson for another time. 

“ _ Do you hate me, Little Bird?”  _ He finally asks her. The sound of his voice catches her off guard, and he spots how her furrowed brows falter for only a second as he speaks. Her lips purse into an uncomfortable line, and for a second, he thinks she won’t speak. So he releases her, opting to continue dressing himself before the tremors grow even stronger.

But then, she gifts him with that strong voice of hers; thick with emotions that he couldn’t all pin at once.

“You all just take and take.” Hatred. That’s the emotion he knows all too well. And for moments, the words remain nonsensical. She’s foolish for stating the obvious. He and his kind are unapologetic creatures. They take the lives of the mice. They take their sanity and security and they will take  _ far  _ more in the ages to come. The sooner she realizes this, the better off she’ll be. But then, after more thought, he remembers. Not only killers can be selfish. They weren’t the only souls capable of cruelty, ironically enough. 

“How long will you allow others to take from you?” He responds. “When they do not deserve what you have to offer? What will you do, Bird?” When your wings are clipped and your cage bars you from the sky, he thinks. What can she do? Where will she go? 

The silence hangs in the air, and for a second, he is moved by the sheer tragic beauty of her expression. He’s never been one to fall for the doleful damsel. He doesn’t care for tears: they only speak of weakness to him. But seeing her does not evoke this sentiment. Something is shifting within her this very instant. Her tears are hot and angry. Filled with life. He is witnessing a metamorphosis right before his very eyes. 

His words seem to sober her up. She rips her gaze away. Pushes back the hatred and wipes her eyes like a child. 

“Where are my clothes?” She asks. After offering a small huff, the closest thing to a genuine laugh he’s given in ages, he stares her down. Shrugging off her impertinence, he nods over to the treeline, just over by her shrinking campfire. “Further in the trees from where you hung them.”

With that, she shuts him out. Turns her back on him as she returned to her meager camp. She’ll probably relocate, knowing her. She’ll try to squirrel her way somewhere else lonely and secluded, far from a prying gaze. But they’ll have their time again. Soon, if he could help it. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


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**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ty for reading. Once again, please forgive me if my rusty writing showed through. It gets stronger later on. ^u^


	3. Worship

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another strange meeting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the wait for this one. I sometimes sit on things for far too long because I have a tendency to agonize over my writing because yknow. quality control! So yeah, thank you for reading and enjoy. ^~^

The fog makes one miss many things. Restaurants. Dogs. Butterflies. The sound of children laughing. Things that she took for granted. But most of all, she missed the sun. 

She could remember all these things. Count them on a loop in the finite moments between trials. Each time there would be a new memory. A chorus of sneakers on a basketball court floor. A waterpark tide pool: her clutching to the side railing as the buzzer sounds and the waves got rougher as the seconds ticked on. Her clinging to someone’s back and watching on in envy as others braved the deep end, being far stronger swimmers than she at the young age of eight. 

She would kill to go to a water park right now. To feel the blistering hot sun and chase the heat with ride after ride. It was her family’s summer ritual. Not a year passed without a visit to the beach and a waterpark. 

Little things. She finds obsessing over them preferable to obsessing over the red gaze and the memory of fingers dancing over her skin.

Sometimes, sweet summer memories aren’t enough to chase away the scene. Sometimes, the brain is stubborn and the body is weak. She'll be thrown back into her camp with little fanfare after a gruesome end. Impaled by blades or head cracked open like an egg by someone’s club. And she’ll lie in her tent and try to choke back her misery with sweet summer memories. They aren’t always enough. Sometimes, it’s the feeling of his hot breath on her that greets her. His heavy handed hold on her body. The pressure between her hips chasing away all thought. She finds that type of thoughtlessness blissful, ironically enough. Not being able to think of anything but the barrage assaulting ones very being is a blessing that she begrudgingly admits that she wouldn’t mind experiencing again. She’s given in on trying to deny it. Denial requires effort that benefits no one. Not even herself. The sooner she reconciles with the heat that simmered within her every time she thought of him, the sooner she can understand where to go with such wretched feelings. 

After especially bad trials, she thought of him willingly. When the hurt is too loud to drown out, she remembers the words instead. How much longer would her thankless plight carry on? How much of herself would she allow to be taken? Her mind is no longer the fortress she’d steadily built up to counter the merciless guile of killers. Her body no longer a temple, with how recklessly she put herself in harm's way for others that held no love for her. She doesn’t even know her own reasons for doing it anymore. She thought herself a shield back when things were simpler. Before she became the “other.” She had always been the shield, even in life, for those smaller than herself. Ironically so, when she was only a little under five and a half feet tall. 

Instead of a shield, she’s been reduced to fodder. She understands the oni’s words now more than ever, rolling them around in her head like a prophet’s teaching. 

It’s during a run in with the creature she couldn’t name that she understands the underlying meaning behind his words. She achieves a breakthrough, or something like it. She can’t recall what the other survivors called it, or even if it had a name other than “it.” It’s primordial. Otherworldly. Something not of their existence. Yet still, it hungered for flesh and blood as if it needed it to survive. This creature lacks in the wit that other killers possess, but makes up for it fully with raw, bestial instinct. It’s drive is to maim and slaughter, and that’s enough to account for any lack of cleverness in this fog. 

This time, she matches ferality with ferality. It’s claws are too sharp, and she’s already witnessed it devour someone alive. She doesn’t wish to see the strange flower-like maw up close, so she keeps her distance. 

Something within her lurches when she hears the keening wail of fresh meat being placed on the hook. The beast has enough sense to know that there was a purpose to the bloodshed. Whether it was the Entity’s guidance or by its own volition, she knew not to underestimate it too much. 

So she’s cautious when she treads through the grass that covered the sprawling ironworks. She sees Meg on the hook and something doesn’t feel right. Call it intuition. Or perhaps, those words had her firmly by the collar as if she were a restrained dog, but she didn’t act on that latent instinct burned into her being. No, there was a new one in its place. A hesitant animal. Watch and wait, instinct said. 

She sees Ace sidle up beside his comrade, tentative steps carrying him all the way. He moves to lift the young woman up and off the hook, and the rest is history. The creature is more clever than it lets on. It was a predator, at the end of the day. The art of ambush is its forte. 

She understands that there is no saving the other. So she backs away. Guilt isn’t the loudest in the cacophony of emotions that eat at her as she turns her back on Meg’s empty gaze. If anything, it’s hope. It’s wind underneath her wings. She’ll be the martyr no more. 

Her heart leaps as she finds the hatch, open and waiting. The freefall back into her camp is a reward she hasn’t been blessed with in a hot minute. 

* * *

She’s reluctant to call it a winning streak for fear of jinxing herself. The aches and pains of surviving trials are welcomed trophies. Battle scars. It stops being so much luck as it is raw will that saves her time and time again. For the first time in ages, she feels some sort of control. 

This is easily dashed with a singular trial. 

The temple has always been one of her least favorite places for its connotation alone. Her own relationship with the divine hadn’t been all that strong in life. The moment she learned to drive was the moment she started peeling away from her family’s tendency to spend Sundays lined up in pews listening to lofty words. But still, the idea of something once holy falling into a twisted parody of itself in hell set her on edge. All those horror movies that revered all chapels as an oasis protected from evil seem like childish assumptions now. Nothing is too sacrosanct to fall. There is no ground too holy to taste spilled blood. 

She knows this now. Oni works overtime to remind her and the others. 

She’s been ruthless. Not heartless, but not necessarily too forgiving granted that David has tried to get her killed twice now. This paired with the obvious fury their hunter pursues them with this trial, it becomes abundantly clear that she will do far better on her own. Obviously, the rumor of her being an essential bloodbag hasn’t sat too well with the survivors. They are wary of her like foxes wary of a hound. They think that she’ll alert her master, and something about that one rubs her the wrong way. Worse than what was assumed of her before. This one is lower. 

So she sticks to herself. Pokes and prods at a generator far from the sounds of carnage mingling with the heavy, cold rainfall of the forest. She hates it here. She’s always hated the cold. She misses the sun and hates how the clouded, grey sky taunts her with the lowest of light. 

She has yet to make eye contact with their killer, but she knows it’s him. She knows his voice. Knows what his rage sounds like now more than ever, after searching for it for countless trials. She hasn’t been exactly eager to see him again. she knows better than to expect lightning to strike twice. She may not be lucky this time. He may not be so merciful or his whims may not align with her desire to escape, so she tries to keep out of sight for fear of more excessive attention. 

She’s good at staying gone when she needs to be. Even when others act selfishly, luring the wolf to a different target in hopes of saving their own hide, she manages to give them the slip. She’s normally light on her feet, good at hiding in underbrush or behind trees when necessary. But this time she isn’t so fortunate, the roar of the gen eclipsing the sounds of approach. She isn’t privy to what’s happening until the thundering footfalls are right behind her. She’s let down her guard too much. 

She’s yanked back by her collar before she can even fully rise to bolt away. Air is stolen straight from her lungs, but she doesn’t feel a blade. No, she’s hoisted up like a cat by her scruff. If she’d worn anything less sturdy, it may have ripped right then and there. 

The hold is uncomfortable, and she felt too much like a small animal in his grasp. For moments she’s shocked stupid, baffled by the sheer fact that he’s grabbing her instead of outright  _ killing  _ her. 

She guesses she should consider that a small victory. Cherish the small things.

The shock wears off and instinct takes its place. She slips out of the leather jacket she’d donned for the trial and meets the ground as graciously as she can. Her first mind is to dart inside the temple. Break his line of sight and disappear into darkness like a mouse. Hopefully she could shake him for long enough for his interest to wane. 

But he follows her with a renewed gusto. An enthusiasm she’s only seen when he was thoroughly  _ pissed _ . She has done nothing to earn the ire this time, so she can only assume the worst. Don't get caught, she reminds herself. Even when there's a small voice in the back of her head that tells her that it may not be so bad, she spurs herself to run hard and fast. 

There’s a strange ebb and flow between them. He chases her, but moments later leaves her be. The moment her hands find a generator, no matter where in the forest she found herself, he’s there, scaring her away as if she were a mischievous animal trying to get a farmer’s crops. He doesn’t go any further, chasing her for as long as was needed. And once satisfied that she won’t return to do her work, his attention goes elsewhere. 

She knows she’s being toyed with and for some reason, rather than being grateful that she hasn’t been cut down, she’s thoroughly  _ livid.  _

The next time he finds her, she doesn’t stop until she finds herself deep within the temple’s inner sanctum, bounding down the winding stone steps and descending into the humid darkness that was the bowls of the stone ruin. She tries to not think about her surroundings too much. How the stone slab in the chamber’s heart has seen her blood spilled time and time again; how this is the room where the trial’s final acts replayed on an endless loop with how often she finds herself trapped down here by bloodthirsty pursuers. He locks her in the same way but she doesn’t immediately despair, even when he descends the staircase and slowly pads into the room, the mask’s hollow-eyed gaze fixed on her through the darkness. Her stomach curls and she doesn’t know if it's dread or anticipation making her restless, but she tries to keep cool. He’s not charging for her yet. He’s… placid, almost. 

The quiet is heavy like the world on Atlas’s shoulders and she feels like she’ll suffocate if she doesn’t do something about it. She doesn’t want to reconcile with it. Doesn’t want to think about how he was calm before her. How he hasn’t killed her yet. Hasn’t even so much as  _ attempted  _ to spill her blood. She doesn’t like having his gaze on her, so heavy and  _ warm  _ and  _ oh my god he’s not thinking what I think he’s thinking right?  _ Too many eyes still left to see them. Too many witnesses. She couldn’t. She can’t. 

She wants to. There’s no point in denying it anymore. She’s just as sick as the other survivors think she is now. Spoken into existence. 

But she  _ can’t.  _

He takes a step. She steps back, instantaneously like their feet are linked on a dancefloor. 

“You’re wasting time.” She speaks, because the silence is crushing her like the weight of the ocean. “I don’t think your god will be happy if you choose to gawk at me instead of doing your work.”

“Do not flatter yourself, woman. I am not shirking my duties for your sake.” 

“Are you sure? Your game of catch and release earlier tells me differently.” 

“You’d rather me cut you down?” He takes another step, echoing the question. The dark entreaty. She retreats just as much, but she knows that the cold stone between them is far from enough of a barrier to keep them apart. 

“Ideally, I’d rather you and your coworkers leave me alone indefinitely.” 

“You say this, yet you purposely ran yourself into a dead end. I think you want to be pursued, Little Bird.” 

The accusation strikes a nerve, but she can’t deny the spark within her. She tries to play it off, pursing her lips and pinning him with hard eyes and a furrowed brow that betrays just how much he’s hit the nail on the head. 

“You’re not trying to kill me.” The question goes without saying. But she knows the answer already. She wants to hear it, just to make sure that this nightmare hasn’t tumbled into the realm of surreal. 

She doesn’t even have the time to react once he finally lunges into motion, circumventing the stone slab in mere seconds. Her reaction is by no means slow, but still she finds a hand gripping her arm with such tremendous force that she’s sent careening back against his chest. Before she can even catch her breath or protest, he shoves her back towards the stone slab. She’s barely able to brace herself against it. The wind is knocked straight from her lungs as she’s nearly crushed under the weight of his massive body. 

The warmth that spikes through her is just shy of startling, but she’s learned not to think too much about that. Instead, she focuses on the warmth and the cool, gritty stone that her face is pressed against as he all but pinned her down. The hardness between his legs speaks louder than any words she previously sought after. 

Right, she thought. He has something else in mind. 

Very much like a dog that’s tasted blood, his interest has been piqued. He’s back for more and the most she can do against the insurmountable force is buckle up. 

The small voice in the back of her head is no different, growing in volume with each passing moment they shared together in the darkness of that room. She ought to be afraid. What has he done to earn this amount of trust? Why is she so sure he wouldn’t slice her into bits right this very moment? It can be just a ruse. An elaborate game to get under her skin: enticing her with a sweet bliss that was like water in the longest drought. She’s desperate. The fool and the punchline to a joke with one hell of a setup.

But she can’t help herself but fall. 

She wonders if he’s grown bored with the killing. Do these maniacs ever tire of their work? Despite their enthusiasm to paint their arenas with blood, she wonders in the down time. Wonders just how any living, breathing, thinking thing can go through the same motions on infinite loop and not tire. Monotony doesn’t mesh well with her personality, so she finds it hard to consider anyone would be content with it, insanity be damned. 

She wonders if he’s become an addict, too. Wonders if he craves that hit the same way she does. Even now…

Yet, she can’t help but worry. Worry about things she wishes her brain wouldn’t consider. Wonders about the other survivors. About the generator just behind the staircase deeper within the chamber’s inner sanctum. What if someone came down here for it? What if someone sees the scene? Despite the accusations that stand against her, she still doesn’t want to encourage any more ill will. It’s irrational to hope for her name to be cleared: she’s already taken that final leap into depravity that people expect of her. Accepts it with open arms, even. But still, her trepidation insists on restraint. She’s still too sensible to take the final swan dive into uncertain waters. 

But the very human part of her wants the other half of her brain to shut the hell up. It tells her that it doesn’t matter that he stole from her. That she should be grateful that he doesn’t take more. Her life is more of a bounty to pay, but twice now he’s let her walk away with it. He only craves one thing from her, and after ages of deliberation and mental gymnastics, she’s come to the conclusion that regardless of her feelings about either alternative, she has no say in the matter. Might as well try to find some sort of light in the situation. 

And sadly to say, she is tired of battling with herself. Tired of vilifying herself for dwelling on those sweet feelings born of something so twisted and wrong. Something born of violence, yet she cant help but linger on the tenderness she felt once she finally gave in. He was only but sating a need. Taking something precious. So why does she not hate him? Why even now does she not fight? She easily resigns to it on the off chance that she’ll be able to chase a fleeting feeling. 

She wants him to stop.  _ Needs  _ him to stop. But she wants him to continue. She wants to not be confused. To not be constantly the subject of the fucked up attention of monsters. Yet, she craves the attention he gave her. Because for once, someone didn’t want pain for her. One soul, out of all in the Fog, wanted something else from her. Didn’t want her at the end of their blade, or to throw her to the wolves. 

She knows that she plays with fire by hoping for this to continue. But every step she takes is a risk here. 

She struggles to speak, their closeness and the pressure of a hard bulge pressing against her bottom making thought difficult. “The trial.” She starts. She needs her moment to sort through her mess of feelings. 

His grinding hips came to a reluctant halt as the words dragged him back to lucidity. He rises just enough for her to breath easily again, no longer distracted and dizzy from the proximity and his warmth. “You’re eager for your comrades to die. Have you taken my words to heart?” 

Her face burns. She wants to object, but she doesn’t know how she can explain how wrong the prospect of him forgoing his duty just to fuck her seemed. Almost as if he was breaking a pact. A transgression committed for the sake of lust. And the last thing she wants is the Entity’s ire. She doesn’t even know if the deity cares. Doesn’t know if she’ll also be punished for his negligence, but she rather not take the risk. 

She wonders what the deity’s anger looked like for the other side. Did she get violent with them? Do they get in trouble, even? Or were they her blameless champions, exacting her will without fault right up until the moment one takes a different sort of interest in one of the quarry. 

He takes her by the chin, angling her head back so that he can observe her once more before breaking the contact. The space between them is far too cold once he parts from her, but she doesn’t complain. She’s being strangled by realization that she wants this, whatever  _ this  _ is. She misses it already, and when she turns to find him already making for the stone steps, she feels a little twinge of disappointment. 

But it’s only proper, if there is such a thing in this place. 

As she watches him go, the sheer absurdity of the situation forces her to sober. She wonders where she can go from here. Should she stay and wait for him? Remain at his mercy and pray his lust continues to eclipse his thirst for blood? Perhaps she can find herself an out of all this before it all goes south. Or before she actually becomes just as depraved as she fears. Nothing good could come of it. She could take advantage of his own desire and take this as an opportunity for escape. Slip away and do more generators and just work triple-time to stay out of his sight. It will royally piss him off, she knows. But apprehension screams at her to escape. She’s torn. 

But just as she suffers from her mental dilemma, he stops just before the first step. A beat of silence passes before he makes the decision for her, turning to face her once more. She flinches at the change of pace. The fear that maybe she’s misunderstood him grips her full force. Perhaps she was naive to think that he was like her. That the human desire would ever be strong enough to override the monster in him. 

He strides up to her, gripping her before she gets the chance to bolt. Not that there’s anywhere left for her to go. The most she can do is utter a gasp as he yanks her head to the side by the hair. 

She feels the teeth first this time around and she panics. The intrusion leaves her skin burning with the sharp, sudden pain, but he’s not excessive. No, this time he gorges himself practically. He isn’t indulging a thirst. He’s merely filling his tank. 

This is gonna have consequences. 

He takes enough to make her weak in the knees and lightheaded. When his mouth leaves her neck, she’s clutching on to him like a crutch. She has enough sense left to trade for the altar behind her as something to prop herself up on. 

“Stay and behave. Do not interfere further and I’ll be gentle again this time.” He leaves it at that, leaving her right where she stood with a warmth in her belly in response to his dark promise. She tries her best not to think about what “not gentle” entails and does as she’s told. Not that she'd go far anyway with her legs feeling too much like jello, so she takes a breather. She inhales and exhales and once she has a little strength she hoists herself onto the altar and just takes a  _ break.  _

It’s bizarre. Not exactly relaxing. Apprehension still has her in its oppressive chokehold, but at least she’s not running around in the rain like a chicken with its head cut off. Even now she remembers that she is freezing, wet and cold thanks to the drizzle outside and left to suffer now that the quiet has settled. If it weren’t for her own anemic exhaustion, she would’ve been too restless to sit idly. 

But now, the most she can do is lie down and take the opportunity. She closes her eyes and becomes like a sleeping beauty herself. 

* * *

  
  


Hands wake her from her deathly slumber. Feverish hands that dig into her flesh. A quiet rage that spurs her into survival mode before she even understands. That’s the beauty of the fog, or any harrowing situation even. It strips a person bare. Takes them back to their roots and places them in the very same skin of their ancestors that fought tooth and nail for life. Oddly enough, this hell realm tempers the soul. Makes it truer to its own nature. 

Or thats what she felt. 

Right now, she’s as rabid as the distant, proto-human ancestor that contributed to her existence. She matches the ferality of the woman gripping her by the shirt, fighting to pull out of the furious hold. But she’s dragged off the altar. The impact upon meeting the ground knocks the wind from her lungs; it’s a far enough drop for the abrupt pain to bloom up and down the length of her side. She’s not allowed to recuperate, the woman bearing down on her with unparalleled fury. She shouts at her, words that dont even sound like words anymore. Through the struggle, she recognizes the woman as Kate, bordering hysterical with unadulterated  _ rage _ . 

She doesn’t have the time to ask any whys. She just fights, because undiluted hatred proves to be just as deadly as the very killers that stalked them. It’s getting harder and harder to breath, and her neck is screaming for relief. 

She doesn’t know how she does it, but she manages to create an opening. Her nails meet flesh and Kate recoils enough for her to make her move. She throws her off. Scrambles away. 

She finds the blonde cradling her eye. Must’ve gotten her good by the unearthly shriek she gave, but something tells her that it's not purely pain that fuels it. No, it’s an unhealthy mix of agony and anger. Disbelief. Desperation. She gives a string of curses, outrage plastered on her face as she all but snarls.  _ You bitch. You keep killing us. You bitch!  _

A strange seizing sensation grips her from the inside. The same sort of anxiety that blooms when someone tells you something you’d been expecting, but had been so in denial over that when the words are said it hits you like a truck. Like news that someone died even though you woke up with a premonitive, sinking feeling that morning. Like you should’ve seen it coming. 

Yes, her actions will yield consequences. 

Kate finds her strength again, renewed by whatever expression the darker woman had been wearing. Or perhaps, the pain just finally yields to her anger. She’s completely in the dark as to what’s happened outside, but it must’ve been bad. It must’ve been brutal for this type of snapping.

But it’s deserved. She can’t deny that much. 

But she’s not really all that keen on letting the blonde choke her to death, so she acts accordingly, bloodloss be damned. Her power nap was enough. She’s not at one hundred percent, but adrenaline is one hell of a force. 

They move in a blur of desperation and flailing limbs. Kate tries to choke her again, but she doesn’t offer an opening. She’s throwing punches now, vigor returning in full upon realizing that this woman didn’t intend on stopping any time soon.  _ I’ll be damned before I let  _ you  _ kill me.  _

She remembers now how strong she used to be in life. A place like this allows you to forget the before. But now, she feels it. Especially once Kate slips up. The dark haired woman is allowed to pin her with a blow directly to the face. She straddles, and she remembers what her Daddy told her about knuckles and fists. 

She doesn’t stop until Kate is out, and once there is quiet, the sight of her blood is like a cold ice bucket. 

A gaze can be felt on her back. It’s heavy, almost enough for goosebumps. 

She curses mentally. God, this isn’t a good look. She can only imagine what the scene looks like to him. She draws in a breath. Stands and turns to find the dim light filtering from up the stairs playing off of his rain and blood soaked armor. He’s still as he watches her, save for the gentle ebb and flow of his deep, sighing breaths. She doesn’t know what to make of him, but he’s starting to unsettle her. The scrutiny screams judgement. 

“She tried to kill me…” she explains. Sounds like a poor excuse in her ears. She should’ve let her. 

He finally moves. Having him so close still unnerves her. The tightening in her belly is still primarily born of anxiety, but he merely eyes Kate’s unconscious form. He takes his blade and unceremoniously digs it into the space just between her breasts. It’s easy for him, like simply cutting butter despite the bone and muscle she knew would make the task arduous for any normal person. She should flinch. She should feel fear. Should get as far from him as possible. Something keeps her grounded right beside him, however. Stockholm syndrome, perhaps. 

She can smell the blood now, coppery and pungent. It drenches the front of his armor and coats his sword. Clings to him as if it would merely sink in and become a part of him without him having to actually ingest anything. He watches her, and it’s too dark to peer behind the darkness of his mask and determine anything. The most she gets is a blank stare as he holsters his sword again. Why does he stare like that? Why is his breath so heavy? As if he were barely keeping himself together. Could killers even get winded? Did they ever tire? Did one of the others give him a run for his money? 

When he finally collides, he hits her like a train. His body finds hers and she finds herself back at the start, pressed so close against the altar that it’s a wonder she can still breathe. She doesn’t even have a moment to be disgusted by the wet, cold feeling of blood and rain being smeared all over her body that has only just warmed up. No, she’s too busy being assaulted by a barrage of sensation for all of that. An eager hand finds her breasts and toys with them as if they belonged together. The other is dipping between her legs, cupping the secret between her hips as he tortuously ground a digit against the clothed split of her lips. 

Straight to business. 

As much as her body craves his touch, she’s lucid enough to register the discomfort of the edge of the altar being pressed against her back. That paired with the slurry of violence and gore plastered over the entire front of his armor pushes her to entreat the brute. She pushes him, a feeble plea for space and a moment to catch her breath. His fingers are stealing the very air from her lungs as they ground against her center. The moment she manages some sort of foothold, he shifts the gears. 

Her pants are pulled just enough to expose her bottom to the cool air, his claws scraping the soft skin just enough to leave rushed, red scratches along the length of her right thigh. She doesn’t even have a moment to understand his intentions before she’s turned around, his hand holding her by the shoulder and forcing her to bend over ever so slightly. There’s movement behind her. It doesn’t take much for her to realize that the brief interlude can be attributed to his disrobing. 

Her face can practically burst into flames at this rate. Time seems to cease movement, or slow to a crawl at least. Every sound is amplified. Every touch burns into her skin. The fire resting between her hips roars in anticipation. She is  _ aching  _ for him, her pussy wanting for him so much that it hurts. It’s hard to recall a time that arousal had her so firmly by the collar. She feels too much like an animal in this moment, begging to be bred by her stud. 

She’s fine with it. She wants to hate him. Hate herself, but she cannot bring herself to. She comes to the conclusion that it will be their own secret. In this chamber, it’s only she and him. Their two bodies and an ever lessening amount of chilly air between them. His warmth radiating off his skin in waves. Her body trembling under his hold. 

She hears the armor fall away to the floor piece by piece and he’s too hungry to be bothered with undressing totally. He spreads her legs, forcing her to present herself to him as he takes his hard cock and glides the head over the wet lips of her pussy. There’s nothing more she can do but brace herself against the stone and wait for the inevitable. 

He wastes no time and leans into her, sheathing himself within her until his hips are flush against her bottom. She gives him a sharp gasp, body tensing at the sharp sting of pain that the massive stretch guarantees. Yet the pain is easily eclipsed by the bloom of pleasure that the friction of his slowly pulling out gifts her with. She feels all of him, fully and completely. They’re joined, so close and his cock buried within her so deep that it feels like a dream. 

He needs a moment to breathe, gripping her hip so tight that she involuntarily reaches back and reminds him of his promise for gentleness with a single touch of the hand. She is delicate. So fragile and impermanent, like a butterfly in his hands. Her wings can be so easily ripped away. She can be snuffed out in an instant with only a fraction of his power; With only his hands. 

Yet still, she remains open. She shivers at his touch, body trembling as his idle hand trails featherlight touches down the elegant slope of her back. He admires her angles and curves. Worships her fragility. Like smooth porcelain, but not without imperfections. He sees them now, more than ever. The ghost of a scar that trails across her back, coupled with a faded burn scar that only sparked his intrigue about her life before the Fog. What danger nicked his porcelain doll? What flames lapped at this soft flesh? Questions for another day. 

He draws himself out slowly, his member easily gliding out of her warmth now more than ever. She croons. Offers a simple plea uttered like a breathless prayer unto him that sets his blood ablaze all over again.

“Please.” 

It takes all his mettle as a man to show her mercy. Show restraint, but it’s damn near impossible when the minx is begging so sweetly for him. Her hips shift, blindly searching for their reunion. She nearly finds it before he tightens his grip on her, forcing her to still. She whines for him, and her muscles caress his throbbing head. She wants him back. 

There’s nothing more than he wants than to grant her wish. He sinks into her once more. Sharply. Abruptly, pulling another gasp from her. His reach is deep within her and he’s certain that his head is kissing her womb. He draws himself out once more. Sheathes himself. Out and in. Out and in. 

He steadily fucks her like this, reveling in the sweetness in her voice as she takes him in full. A curse escapes her lips but she’s whining. Moaning and crooning as he drills into her with building momentum. Her cadence builds, crescendoing with a yelp as he sharply ground into that sacred spot of hers. 

“ _ There!”  _

He grins behind his mask. His bird sings so freely for him today. Yet, he isn’t looking to spoil her. He doesn’t want her to reach nirvana just yet. It’s just the two of them, and they’d have plenty of time.

Soon, all that can be heard are their labored breaths and the sharp song of flesh on flesh echoing through the inner sanctum. She’s hanging onto the altar, just barely able to keep herself propped up as he drives her into it. Once again, she’s overwhelmed by him. The fullness is making her thoughts come slow as he grazes that spot within her again. She feels herself respond with tensing muscles, and he growls in turn. 

Heavy hands fall on her shoulders; an attempt for stability as he braces himself and unleashes a punishing round of shallow thrusts. Her body responds in turn, leaning into his as he pistons his hips into hers. She can feel the coil within her tightening with each passing moment. Each thrust leaves her desperately grasping for a hold on reality. Her sanity slips and she finds herself unable to even articulate a single thought. Her brain is being fucked into a mush, despite her doubts that she’d be ever able to experience anything like it. 

A decision is made in the midst of frenzied, interrupted thoughts. She decides to let go. 

The floodgates open and she throws caution to the wind. She’s begging for him now. Asking sweetly for his cock to kiss her womb. Kiss that secret within her. For anything and everything. “Please,” comes her saccharine cry. “ _ Harder.”  _

He answers her plea in full. 

He reaches so deep within her and the coil tightens. It’s hard to even draw breath and her skin feels far too hot. The most she can give is a breathy prayer. An invocation of a god that can’t even hear her voice. It’s like being on fire, but her nerves are alight with bliss instead. A pleasant type of thoughtlessness where she’s stripped bare and made to only feel. 

Letting go feels good. It’s the best thing she’s done since entering the fog. 

She feels herself careening close to the edge, hot, electric pleasure roiling within her with all the power of a storm at sea. She’s so close and insanely, she thinks that she loves him in this instant. 

But he stops just before she goes over that edge. Her heart sinks and her core yearns for him to  _ move.  _ Like a petulant child, she’s impatient, moving against him in a vain attempt to recapture that glorious sensation from before. 

He takes her by the arm before she’s left to continue pouting. Turns her around and before the word “what” can even leave her lips. clawed hands guide her smaller pair to his shoulders. with a single deft movement, he lifts her. His hands grip the soft flesh of her ass so firmly that his claws dig into her skin as he holds her close, hips beginning to piston into hers as he thoroughly ruts her so hard her whole body trembles under the force. The most she can do is hold on, cage his waist with her legs, and sing. 

She wants his cum. Wants him to embed her with his mark. He’s already hollowed her out, carving his very own imprint within her so that her pussy would remember. His breath comes hot and heavy, his masked face buried into her neck as he holds her. 

His voice comes low, separated by his own string of lustful growls. She never took him as the talkative type, but then again she never took him for such a generous lover. She now understands that there is no shortage of surprises here, especially once he breathes sinful words of praise into her ear. They teeter between the line of depraved and downright  _ sweet _ . So sweet that she feels herself grow hotter, pussy tightening around his cock as he speaks of how well she takes it. He speaks about her soft skin. Her perfect, sinful hips. “Gentle little Bird,” he says, slowing his pace so that she can step away from that edge she’d been quickly reapproaching. Now she’s digging her face into his neck, whimpering pitifully as he tortures her. “Who would’ve known that you have such a sinful appetite, Little Bird? You presented yourself so easily to your hunter.” He tells her, practically gloating as he ground against her center again. 

Her face is hot, pleasure being coupled with embarrassment as she shook her head. She wants to say no. That he’s wrong, but she can’t bring herself to speak. She can only cry out, but he presses on, reveling in her bashfulness and inability to refute him.

He shifts them and her bottom finds the altar as he uses it to rest her weight on. She finally releases her hold on him, leaning back instead on the stone. The two easily transition, his pace barely even stuttering as he picks up again. 

The act is so vulgar. So carnal and  _ needy.  _ The sounds of her sopping wetness being abused by him fills the room as he grunts in between his thrusts, him nearing the precipice just as she is. She’s always been the handsy type. Always one for kissing and betraying her feelings way too easily in moments like these. She slips up with him, but she doesn’t care. The coil within her is so tight; the string is so close to snapping and she feels like an animal. She leans forward, linking arms around his neck once more and planting fervent kisses on just on the edge where mask gives way to his jaw. He is far from a lover. This is far from normal. But for just this moment, she can pretend that she’s having a normal midnight rendezvous outside the fog, with a handsome man that may or may not love her. Had she not been so close to climax, she might’ve sobbed at the irony. 

She plants more eager kisses along his chin and she feels herself cresting. He’s close too, by the way his thrusts stutter and grow jerky with impending climax. No more words are shared, the two only able to muster no more than grunts and moans that beg for the blissful end. He decides that this is a far sweeter alternative than her giving her life for worthless whelps. She belongs here on his cock, rather than on a sacrificial hook. 

He braces himself on the altar, giving his final round of thrusts as his thick cock drives her into a state of madness. She croons as she cums, legs tight around him as her muscles finally clamp down around his member. The electric hot feeling courses through her, so dazzling that she sees white.

One, two. Three more reps later, he’s filling her with his ample, warm seed. It feels foreign inside her, but welcomed. He buries himself, cock kissing her womb a final time as he gives her his parting gift. He doesn’t sever their connection even after the spurts have ceased, instead opting to simply breathe into her warm flesh and listen to her hummingbird heart finally calm inside her chest. 

She’s beautiful, with her heaving chest and her full, bell-shaped breasts moving in time with each breath. Dark, exotic skin and even darker hair, wavy curls now disheveled thanks to their carnal act. He drinks in the sight. She is far from the common sensibility of his native home and time. But charming, in her own, debased way. With a beautiful little face that only he will see. A beautiful voice that only he would hear.

What Bird is this, he wonders? A blackbird? A nightingale? A dove? 

He watches her come down from the stupor. Watches her sense return in full. Her expression betrays it all. She’s no longer attempting to be like stone. Attempting to be something she is not. Is she embarrassed of her own vulgarity? Disgusted by their act?

The thought doesn’t sit well for him, but he doesn’t understand why. 

She finally moves to pull away, but he grasps her hand just before it leaves his shoulder. Her hands are soft, and he enjoys feeling them on his skin. That’s what he tells himself. That’s why he holds her still. She doesn’t argue. Doesn’t fight. 

Instead, she understands, leaning back into his body. She’s fine with it, she decides. Just a bit longer, before they resume their regularly scheduled programming. Killers  _ do  _ get tired. She’s tired, too. 

It’s hollowness she feels when he leaves her. He pulls out, and the foreign sensation of his seed spilling from her lips is like a mark of finality. She isn’t elated by the sight. Instead, she tortures herself. 

_ Is he done with me? Has he had his fill?  _

She doesn’t want this to be the end. She enjoyed it. Enjoyed being with him. Perhaps she’s snapped. Perhaps her awful trend of sinking into whatever kind, warm embrace she found herself in because she lived in a perpetual state of love and touch drought is carrying over into the Fog. Maybe she is a little too scandalous for her own good, and a good dicking is enough to make her pliant. Docile. She doesn’t care to think too much of it. Of why she shouldn’t feel sad that it was over. All she knows is that she  _ is _ . 

But she puts her big girl pants on. Swallows back the feeling and slides off the altar. 

She nearly collapsed to the ground with her landing, legs weak and body sore from their coupling. She stops herself before crumpling to the ground, but she catches it. That little sound from him. An exhale through the nose as he watches her. 

Did he just…? 

The bastard actually has a sense of humor. Or perhaps, it was just seeing his effect on her. His handiwork. 

She shrugs it off. Yeah, she thinks.  _ You have made a mess of me. Are you proud?  _ She nearly rolls her eyes. 

Yes, says his lingering gaze, roaming over her tremulous body as she stoops for her clothing.

They dress in silence, her turning from him to avoid any more wandering glances over his battle-worn body. But he isn’t so stringent, indulging in all he could get. He arrives at the conclusion that he likes her look. A body that spoke of duality. Toned muscles in some places but softness in others. Women are soft creatures to him. No angles. Only curves. But her life before the Fog was obviously one that didn’t allow for decadence. The scar and burns scream that sentiment rather clearly. 

Battle worn. Not too unlike him. 

She looks no more than mid twenty. Entering the summer of her life, already tasting cruelty and an impartial, fickle world. Tasting the ire of a cruel, fickle god. He’s not one for sentimentality, but he wonders about where she would be, if not for the Entity. In a house, mothering children for some undeserving waste of flesh? Or perhaps, life would’ve continued to be fickle and uncaring, and she would have continued acquiring scars, her body keeping a natural tally of the world’s cruelty. 

He is satisfied that the Entity brought her to him. A gift, all for his taking. 

She finally dresses and turns to find himself finally clasping his belly plate in place. A question fights against her sense, and she finds herself bold enough to ask, hoping for an answer. 

“Does that ever get… troublesome?” She asks him, eyeing the rope and recalling how much of an obstacle it’s been in their unions. He stops. Eyes her curiously before answering. 

“This armor may as well be my second skin. It is a part of me.” 

She accepts the answer. It makes sense. Ages have passed since he’s probably put it on for the first time. She assumes that her humble casual sportswear will become the same. Just an extension of herself. 

She attempts to shove the kindling apprehension she feels to the far corner of her mind, but to no avail. It’s not the fear of death that makes her hesitant. The fear of returning back to their cycle of maim and slaughter is far worse. The idea of being so foolishly lured into hoping for something that should never be has her frozen in her tracks. 

He finishes with his second skin and his gaze lands on her. The brief moment feels longer than a minute before he starts for the stairs just outside of the altar space. She stands there dumbly, watching as he leaves her. Yet her stomach twists into a different type of knot when he stops, throws her a glance and makes his silent command clear.  _ Come.  _

She does just that, taking special care to avoid letting her eyes fall onto Kate’s corpse. Funnily enough, she’s certain that her death was the most peaceful of the lot. She knows the others weren’t so lucky. 

It’s odd, walking just beside him instead of their usual routine. It’s odd to see him walk at a pace that isn’t rushed like a stalking predator. It feels too relaxed for the fog. Like they aren’t meant to be here. 

She wonders about the Entity. Wonders if this is allowed. Did they find a loophole in the rules? Is the Entity watching? Or is it’s gaze elsewhere, perhaps on a stage with a more interesting feature? Questions she's certain she won’t have answers to. 

They emerge into the dim, blue haze that ironically envelops the red forest. The rain has slowed finally into a light drizzle, but she hates being out in it all the same. Her heart has calmed. The fear never quite leaves her, but she isn’t given any further reasons to run for the hills. 

It’s the hatch that he guides her to, it’s siren call just barely breaking through the silent forest. Memories of past trials replay in her mind’s eye of dashed hopes. Victory stolen straight from her grasp just at the very last moment. Some killers had a real mean streak. Closing hatches right before they were just within reach. Waiting until the wind was just underwing before killing the very light remaining within them. 

But instead of stamping out the hope, he merely stops just before it. His eyes are on her, and she feels that it’s her queue. Her feet are slow to move, however, paralyzed by indecision. Dumbly, she stares back. 

“Would you rather the alternative?” He asks. She purses her lips. Shakes her head no. She knows better than to take the small victory for granted. 

Only a few tentative steps are needed to carry her to the open hatch door. She feels his eyes boring holes into her back, and as much as her instinct tells her to make her hasty escape before he changes his mind, she hesitates. 

“You’ll do good to move before I change my mind, woman.” 

She's lost it. But she doesn’t care. Caution got her nowhere here. 

“I’m still by the stream where you found me.” She says. Her voice remains steady out of sheer desperation to keep her own apprehension secret, but her pulse races. “But I’ve gone further into the woods. There are flowers there. Not the strange kind. Red ones. You’ll know it when you see it.” Her face is burning, hot like fire as she shrinks away from his gaze that she knows is trained on her. Is this too forward? Is she asking for too much as someone who is in no position to make requests? 

It feels like ages, but he finally speaks. “You want to be pursued…” 

The first step he takes has her spinning on her heels towards him, watching as he nears her just enough to catch her before instinct drives her into the hatch. Those hands are on her again, one holding her by the arm while the other takes her by the chin. He’s watching her, and his claws dig a little too deep into the sides of her face. His grip on her arm is a little too tight- she fears for the worst. Is her audacity too much this time? 

Without any further words, he lifts her just enough to subsequently drop her into the dark, yawning maw of the hatch. The most she utters is a small ghost of an interjection, cut off as she disappears in the fraction of a moment. He’s left there to watch the hatch door swing closed by some unseen force, marking the end of his duty. The trial has come to its close. 

His thoughts hardly drift from the audacious little woman, even when the fog ushers him back to his familiar haunt. He had decided on pursuing her ever since that encounter by the stream, and with each moment spent with her, his desire only grows. She wouldn’t be shaking him off any time soon. 


	4. Fever

Flowers did not bloom in the Fog. Not real flowers at least. The putrid aberrations that are the fleshy flowers that litter the darkest corners of the realm could hardly be called so, but she lacked a better name for them. They were abominations in reality. In the beginning, the sound of their unnatural throb and pulse was enough to make her stomach turn. Something not easily replicated in the realm of reality; she couldn’t liken it to anything else. But having to settle near the small patch of pustules forced her to swallow her reservations about the plants. 

Yet it wasn’t until far into her term in the Fog that she noticed the peculiarities of her specific patch. The flowers were not normal. But  _ these  _ were exponentially so. If their usual cousins warded her away based off of only their mere looks alone, the reddened hue of this variety told her to be wary. 

However, moronic curiosity is becoming something familiar to her. She seems to be falling into a dangerous pattern of sticking her nose in places it doesn’t belong. A dog that doesn’t know what a porcupine is and learns quickly with a couple quills to the nose. 

Or in her case, strange dust. 

She hadn’t noticed the flower springing up a little too close for comfort. She couldn’t just simply uproot the little sproutling and move it away. That would require  _ touching  _ it, and that was something that required a little working up to. But it was small, and she knew very well what they were like when they were big: uncomfortable and noisy. So obviously, rather than pack up and move just a few feet to the right she would rather just take the easier route and get over her reservations about touching the thing. It should be fine, she told herself. It’s so small. Just a sprout. 

Very wrong. 

The moment she applied any sort of force to it, the little flower, if she can even call it that anymore, seemingly  _ spat  _ pollen at her. It had to have been pollen. The sheer mortification of whatever else it could be nearly crippled her.

So now she waits. 

She’s too anxious to move too far from the cozy little tree she sat under, gazing at the stream as her mind tortures her with the full scope of possibilities that awaited her. Poison? Would it make her sick? She’s yet to start sneezing or feeling the small beginnings of nausea, but she worried nonetheless. She knows that just like animals, plants evolve in special, peculiar ways. Some played defense with the hyper specialized tools nature gave them, and she’s fully aware of what they look like. 

So when she feels her hands grow warm, she knows the calm before the storm is drawing to a close. It’s like a leak, how knowledge of one peculiarity leads her to be hyper aware of the others she’d been overlooking. The problem of the overbearing warmth of her skin isn't stopping at just her hands. No, skin all over is warm as if she’s been sitting right next to the open campfire closer to her tent. Had it been this effect that drove her over to the treeline instead, away from the fire's warmth? It is admittedly cooler in the darkness, and there is a fine breeze that sweeps through the forest that the fire makes it difficult to fully enjoy with its stifling warmth. 

Her stomach curls at the notion. Did she have a temperature and didn’t notice it until now? 

She internally panics, feeling her forehead as her suspicions are confirmed. Not an accurate test but her skin is so blazing hot that it doesn’t take a thermometer for her to confirm that something isn’t right. Any more and she’ll be breaking a sweat. 

She moves to take a splash in the stream. Something to mitigate the overwhelming heat that’s nestled itself within her body. She’s a walking radiator, and though she strips out of her shirt and splashes cool stream water on her face and neck, it doesn’t do much to solve the problem as much as it highlights another.

Her skin has gone sensitive, as if every touch and sensation has been run through an amplifier. Almost uncomfortably so. The water is a brief respite, but the problem lies with her clothes. Suddenly, the gentle contact of her thighs meeting as she walked and knelt at the water's edge became uncomfortable. The snug closeness of her bra is suffocating, and as she moves, the straps and their little friction as she shifts become too much to bear. The fabric wreaks havoc on her nipples so that even the bending down becomes arduous. 

To hell with it, she thinks as she strips out of the offending article. She’s alone here, and she doesn’t harbor any insecurity of her own flesh. 

In the short trip back to her resting spot, she becomes hyper aware of the heat nestling between her thighs. The heat hasn’t neglected to even roost itself in her center, making her leggings feel unbearably close against her tender womanhood. With each step she feels the interaction between the soft cotton of her panties and the sensitive flesh of her lips and she couldn’t sit down fast  _ enough.  _

Just be still, she figures. Don’t move. Don’t make any sudden movements and the feelings won’t be that harsh to bear. 

She’s proved wrong almost immediately, the warm feeling within her almost becoming like a sentient being and responding in full to her naivety.  _ Absolutely not _ , it roars. It would not be ignored or subdued. 

There’s a tightness in her lower belly, nestled deeper within than the beginnings of a stomach ache. She knows it well. So well, that anxiety follows on its tracks. The knot is slowly tightening, and seems to respond when the understanding of what it actually is finally clicks into place. 

Her thighs clench and she regrets it almost instantly, offering a small whimper as she can only withdraw into herself. She brings her knees up, holding them close as she huddles and tries to will away the ache gnawing within her. It seats itself in the root of her body, finding a home right in the centermost spot between her hips. It’s a familiar ache; the one that leaves her pussy feeling so tight that it hurts with its yearning. 

The minutes pass by like hours, and she doesn't even notice when she starts panting, drawing in deep breaths as she tries to combat it. To mitigate the flood. She doesn’t win.

She may die here. 

At least, that’s what it feels like. The pulse seems to extend beyond her heart to her whole body, throbbing like a primordial drumbeat. The blood courses through her veins like a rushing river. It stutters when a small voice provides a simple solution that involves her very own throbbing fingertips. 

Shame douses her like cold water. Not because of the prospect of sating the ferocious need the only way she knows how, but because for a fraction of a second, an even  _ smaller  _ part of her mutilated mind wished that  _ he  _ was around to do it instead. Something inside preens at the thought. Wets her appetite enough for the heat to respond, almost as if sentient. She wants him.  _ Needs  _ him. 

Why hasn’t he come to her yet? 

She knows that it’s ridiculous to expect anything, let alone a response to her invitation. The moment she hit the ground after being sent so unceremoniously through the hatch, she felt the slow settling mortification akin to a middle school mishap. Like recalling an embarrassing memory best left forgotten. Fool that she was, she shamelessly sought to chase the feeling knowing full and well that she wasn’t the one to be doing the chasing. He’ll come to her when it suited him. All she can do is wait and hope that he hasn’t grown bored of her. 

Sweat has begun to dot her furnace-hot skin. Forehead, arms, thighs and back- just about everywhere has become moist with it as if she needs more obvious evidence that something is  _ wrong.  _ The most she can do is curl herself into a tightly wound knot and battle with the prospect of retreating into her tent, despite a small nagging feeling that her fingers wouldn’t be enough to sate this unbearable ache within her. She nearly sobs at the fact, the beginnings of delirium pushing her even closer to the obsessive train of thought. His fingers.  _ His  _ touch. She only wants  _ him  _ and his own inferno to engulf her own. She wants to be swallowed up by him and that blistering heat of his so that she doesn’t have to ache anymore. 

That is what this has fallen to, right? To be devoured to the point of total and utter unconsciousness that not even the brief void of death could grant her here. His touch offered her something akin to a fleeting transcendence. Despite his callousness. Despite the initial cruelty- the pain of his blade and the pain of being split, he still ultimately gifted her a strange alternative to interrupt the wheel of misfortune. 

A cautious hand dares to drift down between her slightly parted thighs. Fingers dip beneath the hem of her leggings, finding the button of her clit. A gasp is all she can utter, her flesh so tender and sensitive that even the gentle contact is too much to bear.

“Where are you…” it comes as a whisper, almost broken by a sob. She’s damn near certain that she’s going to die. Never has she felt such a mixture of need and pain. For a moment, anger skewers all else within her. Hatred of that damnable flower for daring to plunge her into this sort of madness. Anger at the demon for being absent when she needs him most. Anger at her own biology for constantly playing traitor time and time again. Her body is  _ not  _ her own, and the Fog works overtime in reminding her again and again. But like all other times, the fury is short-lived, easily eclipsed by the tempest of her own melancholic temperament that her penance has only seemed to exacerbate since being plunged into this nightmare. 

So she does the only thing she knows she can: she cries.

* * *

  
  


Her voice is what finally reached him, filtering through the gentle ambience of the dark forest. Almost dog-like in his pursuit, he clings to the sound and follows it like the thread that binds them together. His instinct had been correct: she has been close all along. Her mention of the red flowers hadn’t been an ideal lead, but it was all one could give in the labyrinthian Fog where every rock and tree looked like every other rock and tree. He did not blame her as much as he blamed the cursed Entity for being so elusive. It wouldn’t answer his offerings, so he was left to seek her out himself. 

He follows the thread, her voice finally something discernible as gentle sobbing growing nearer and nearer. The warm light of her small, dying fire finally pierces through the thick fog that obscured most vision. Just a bit nearer and he sees her, sitting just at the base of a tree in the darkness, forehead to knees as she remains oblivious and pitiful in her own despair. For a second, he is clueless. There is a dark curiosity that goads him onward, despite his own reservations about being faced with such a pitiful display. He is not fond of weakness. It almost seems wrong, interrupting the narrative in his mind about his beautiful Bird that not even death or complete subjugation could break so. She did not sob when faced with inevitable death time and time again. Did not sob when he drained her dry of her precious life, or when he laid claim to her. So naturally, he is partly curious to see the source of this strange display. 

But the other part is naturally outraged, that gnawing desire that initially goaded him to take the bird in the first place answering the realization with fury. His bird has been broken, and it had not been him that did it. Naturally, his mind starts to run the possibility of one of the others of his kind being culpable. What else in the Fog is capable of causing misery other than they? They are the only dealers in it, therefore his own possessive edge that seemed to awaken the first time he dug his teeth into her roars its own raucous fury in turn. It will make itself known. 

He doesn’t waste time in the shadows, blood boiling as he nears the woman. She’s drowning so much that she doesn’t hear him until it’s too late, the most she has time to offer is a gasp and wide, saucer-like eyes. 

He notices it then. 

Yes; there are rivulets of hot tears streaming down her porcelain smooth face. She’s disheveled. Not herself. Even her eyes betray it, pupils blown far too wide to be considered normal. Her face is flushed, even through her warm complexion. 

This moment of stillness allows another sound to rush to the forefront, her heart so loud and chaotically beating away within her. Something different from terror. From anger. From even the moments of lust between them. Something is strange about his bird and he does not know  _ what.  _

Confusion seems to have overtaken the fury. It beats it back long enough for him to regain himself. He kneels to her level, and she watches him with wholehearted attention. Almost awe, as if he is a god himself. 

_ That  _ is an insinuation that his mind doesn’t easily let go of. 

He told himself that he wasn’t fond of teary damsels and meek, weakling women. But this is the same look that she gave him by the stream. The same wet eyed gaze that seemed to beg him- prayed to him for something he’s yet to know. A look that sends a tremor ripping up and down his spine all the same. She all but leans into his hand when it meets her warm cheek, almost as if the contact is precious to her. Something sacred. 

“You’re here.” So small is the voice, stating the obvious. He notices now her current state of undress, breasts proudly on display. Her nipples are hardened to peaks. He doesn’t resist his urge, letting his hand ghost down to her chest. 

She’s sensitive, her body trembling the moment his fingers make contact with the dark, sensitive buds. 

Something finally begins to fall into place in his mind. 

“Have you no shame woman?” He asks her, prodding for his answer. “You prefer to laze about naked in the woods like an animal?” 

Her expression falters, shifting from the comfortable bliss stemming from having her breasts toyed with to mortification. 

“No! It’s not what you think! I…”

He decides she is charming when flustered, clambering for an excuse like a shy maiden.

“What is it then? Or shall I believe that it is only preparation for my arrival. Your timing proves to be impeccable yet again.” He squeezes her, interrupting her protest with a gasp. 

“It’s…” she hesitates. He can see her debating with the truth right before his very eyes. Shame. Hot shame shifts her expression. She finds it hard to look him in the eye. 

Instead, she gives a sidelong glance. The flowers. 

He’s yet to understand the strange nature of the pustulous growths found about the realm, monstrous in appearance and mysterious in nature. His curiosity is never strong enough to override his own caution, so he steered clear of them, especially after catching wind of whatever nefarious use they are to that dreaded alchemist amongst their ranks. This caution is something carried over from life. From that faded and far vestibule of memory that was his boyhood. 

You do not touch strange plants in the woods. You do not eat strange berries. You may die. 

He is taken aback by the sudden recollection, locking it deep within the vault. There are more important matters before him. 

“These flowers are not of the same variety we normally see, are they?” He asks her. They are changed. Strange. Red in hue, almost odiously so. 

“They… I tried to move one because it was growing too close to my tent. There was a strange dust and…” it’s hard for her to speak through whatever strange state blights her now. Her breath comes heavy, almost as if panting though pain. 

Whatever he sees now is a side effect of her own stupidity, he muses. “You little fool.” 

“I don’t like them.” She leaves it at that, but the peculiarity of the admittance isn’t lost on him. Did they frighten her? Make her uncomfortable enough to argue against her better senses? Now she suffers for something almost childish. 

“You touched it and now you are sick with its poison.” His hand finally comes to a halt from his languid ministrations, and she offers a sigh. Her hands are so bold as to grasp at his own. But she stops there, hesitant as if she’s stuck between wanting to argue and wanting to beg him to continue .

“It doesn’t feel like poison.” 

She must’ve felt the question without even having to see his face. 

“It doesn’t hurt. Not that way, at least.” 

“Be clearer.” He sharply demands. 

She purses her lips. The admittance doesn’t come easily, almost as if she’s embarrassed by whatever the strange pollen has done to her body. 

“My skin is hot. Everything… It’s really sensitive.” She takes his hand, guiding it gently as she speaks. “I feel it most of all here,” she presses his palm against the soft mound of her breast again. The heat grows contagious, the beginnings of the fever spreading through his own body as she guides the hand ever lower, down the length of her torso. Over the taut flesh of her belly, the dip of her belly button, to the warmth between her legs. She presses his hand there, teasing him with her heat that rivaled the very fire just a few paces from them. 

“And here.”

It’s a retaliatory strike. A declaration. She watches him. Waits for his answer. He fights back the shuddering desire that her boldness only stokes and eases his hand underneath the band of her pants and undergarments. Her heat greets him. Welcomes his touch as his fingers dip between her folds, drenched with her own slick desire. Sucking in a breath, he’s left to marvel at her once more. 

“Please,” she utters, voice thick with something tumultuous that threatens to shatter the restraint he’s built up so far. “It’s so tight it hurts.” 

“How long has this desire tormented you, Bird?” He ghosts a digit over her swollen clit, watching as her body jerks in response. She offers a gasp, grasping his wrist in an effort to stop him. 

“Too much!” 

He can only gawk at her. Her disheveled, flushed appearance and panting breath finally making sense. This is not a woman rapt with pain, but with so much desire that it gnaws at her insides as if she is a cat in heat. Is this the reason for her tears? Did the desire torment her? Something so potent that even she and her own hands couldn’t dare to will away? 

He is the only salvation she has. 

He has finally caught her fervor, blood coursing with only the desire to meet her implication of a request, but he wouldn’t answer just an implication alone. He needs her words. Her earnest admittance. 

“You need assistance.” He says to her. She nods, almost tearful once more as he finally grows close to the goal she must’ve been waiting on. His hands travel lower, settling closer to the source of her wetness that made her yearning apparent. 

“Tell me,” He punctuates the demand with a single finger just barely dipping beyond the entrance. Teasing her to the brink of madness. Her hips ravenously chase the feeling, grinding into his hand with such a hunger that he has to restrain her by the hip. 

“Please! I need you.”

She can’t see his smirk, but she feels it all the same. A sob nearly escapes her when he parts from her wanting pussy to stand. A protest nearly leaves her until she sees him unfasten his armor. The response is almost Pavlovian, her hips singing at the sight of his undressing. She’s leaning forward, kneeling before him now as she waits. 

His cock is already hard, eagerly betraying just what her earnest plea for him has done. He holds it firm, almost proudly as he drunk in the sight of her kneeling before him, honest adoration in her eyes. 

“Ask me a little more sweetly and maybe I’ll be the remedy you seek, woman.” 

Her heart is rocketing inside of her, body nearly weak at the underlying darkness in his tone. A hunger so abrasive that it shakes her to her core. Part of her wants to beg him simply to destroy her whichever way he desires. The needy, starving heat inside needs for her to be simply bred, and she can’t help but choke back a sob at the nearly sadistic teasing he insists upon. 

But the other part of her is drunk on his attention. Seeing his desire on obvious display only stokes the flame, his cock hungry and wanting for her the same way she did him. But there’s something else that she can’t quite give words to. Something that leaves her shaking, tremulous with equal parts desire and anxiety. A formless apprehension; her desire is too thick to allow her to discern it. 

She obediently rises to stand on her knees before him, eyelevel with his manhood. Flashing him a final glance of confirmation, she takes his cock into her hands, the member hot and pulsing in her grasp. After only being allowed to see and feel it as it speared through her, being able to touch it proves to be such a novel experience that she finds herself momentarily at a loss as to what her next step should be. Despite knowing the natural ins and outs that occur between lovers behind closed doors, her mind draws a momentary blank as she all but marvels at the appendage. 

Embarrassingly enough, she is far from an expert when it comes to giving head. 

But she’s intuitive enough to try. She’s yet to lose her bullheaded stubbornness that’d always been a facet of her personality, so she obediently brings her lips to the spongy tip of his cock, the kiss being tantamount to an answer to a challenge. The chaste peck paired with her heated gaze doesn’t go unnoticed. 

She falls into a steady tempo of observing cause and effect. Her tongue darts out against the appendage, and it responds with a twitch. Another, and she’s confident enough to run her tongue along its base. She’s emboldened by the sigh she gets in return, heart leaping at the clear evidence that she’s on the right path. 

Before long, she’s wrapping her lips around him. She has reservations about his size, uncertain if she could be as audacious as to take it all. She’s unsure of whether her throat would allow it or not, but she’ll try if it meant getting more of that sweet sound from him. 

His fingers are nestled in the curly mass of her hair, his hold firm but not forceful as she works her steady pace. Her head bobs with a tentative tempo as she finds something more comfortable, her confidence only seeming to grow with time. For a moment, she’s completely fine with obedience. She’s comfortable with the prospect of merely savoring the heady scent and taste of his manhood as it eagerly twitched on her tongue. There is a stifling closeness to him, his need so great that his pulse is sharp and clear despite her ministrations. She feels it, nearly as much as she feels her own pulse in her aching womanhood. She sucks, sating a nagging curiosity and hears him draw a sharp breath. His fingers clench slightly. She clenches around him again; his hips jerk ever so slightly. 

Would this be possible if not for her stupidly yanking a flower out of the ground? Would she be as bold? Should she be so shameless right now? She feels that she should be anxious. There is undoubtedly a small voice throwing what ifs around in the back of her head, taunting her with the possibility of making a complete and utter fool of herself. The same voice that she has to work to smother during trials, and whenever she found herself at his mercy. But it’s smaller this time, easily swatted aside like a gnat. She doesn’t know if it’s her growing eagerness for him as of late, or an effect of the druglike substance that she suffered from. But either way, she doesn’t mind it, grateful for the absence of that bothersome anxiety. It serves no use here, especially since he clearly gives her wordless affirmations of praise, hips moving to meet her mouth.

For a fraction of a second, just as he slips into her tempo with eager hands nestled into her hair as he guides her into an even stronger pace, she begins to wonder if she truly has bitten off more than she can chew. His head kisses the back of her throat only gently and she’s fighting back the trembling, arbitrary reflex of her muscles. She entreats him for a moment with a rap to his still clothed thigh. Just a beat of stillness so that she may recoup, but his hunger swallows the request. He continues, his greed prompting him further as he makes up for her hesitance. She’s forced to continue, having no other choice but to hold on until he’s had his fill. 

She obediently forces back the reflex that threatens her every time he hilts himself inside her mouth. It’s only willpower now that keeps her steady now, focusing on keeping a constant airflow through her nostrils as she damn near chokes on him. Yet, despite the discomfort and the anxious flutter in her stomach, little noises escape her as involuntary attestations to her own mounting pleasure. Despite all else, her instinct receives his rough touch openly. Nearly enthusiastically. 

It’s not half bad. 

At least, that’s what she tries to convince herself before he starts losing his grip on the reins, hips wild in their pursuit of pleasure. His grunts only seem to betray the bliss delivered by her warm, wet orifice. She can only hold on to his thighs and brace herself. 

And just when she’s at the end of her rope, fear settling into the pit of her belly as she feels herself dangerously close to choking, he stops and grants her mercy. 

It’s only until now, as he parts from her mouth and allows her precious gulps of air, that she can hear her own voice as she greedily gasps. She’s not allowed much reprieve, her head being yanked back by the very same hand that was just before gently nestled in her hair. She’s forced to look at him, and she can only imagine the sorry state she’s in. But despite her teary eyes and saliva riddled chin, she senses something dark brewing behind that red gaze of his as it pierces her. His breathing is at the forefront of sounds between them, just as labored as hers, yet she has the sinking feeling that it’s not only the orgasm that he just nearly abated. There is something there in that stare of his that makes her stomach flip. His grip tightens, her heart sinks, and she can recall just what this feeling that ebbs at her is. 

Fear. 

Because she is a fool to think herself untouchable. She let her guard down with him, and she knows it’s a mistake to believe that a tiger won’t eat a doe when hungry enough. What she sees in his gaze is something starving. Ravenous. she finds herself back at the start for only a moment, fearing that she’d finally be eviscerated. Engulfed and thrown to the side after being reduced to a hollowed husk of her former self. She’d be stripped to the bone and her stupor has been so persistent that she was too close to the tiger’s maw to do anything about it. 

Perhaps, it was only until now that she was able to repress that acidic terror that is only but this realm’s brand of “natural” that occurs between killer and the killed. She’s been favoring yearning rather than the dull monotony of exhaustive horror, but for a fraction of a second, his bloodlust breached the waves and she felt it. She could see his claws. His teeth, and it shocked her back into lucidity for only a brief moment. 

But only for a moment. He gives her no more. 

She’s shoved to the ground, shocked stupid at the sudden shift. She just barely has time to break her fall, his massive frame eclipsing her own on the lead riddled forest floor. She’s flipped: pressed to the ground by a firm hold. Stay put, comes the silent command. She’s being scrutinized, she knows, his breath filtering through his mask as he remains completely wrought with desire for her. If she’s been reduced to an animal in heat, he is only matching her in mind-addled fervor. 

Shifting sounds that she knows too well herald his disrobing. She’s grateful for it, knowing that it’ll be one less obstacle between them. She fights her impulse, torn between obeying and selfishly stealing a glimpse of his powerful frame. He looks every bit as strong as he truly is, a wonder worthy of marvel. A body that very well could snuff out her life at any moment. 

But doesn’t. 

Instead, it closes the gap, replacing cool air with the raging inferno of body heat between them. He brings his hard appendage to the soft swell of her bottom and revels in the gentle friction, grinding his hips against her. His breath comes in hot puffs against her neck as his body eclipses her own on the ground, as close as he can be without overbearing her with the full weight of his frame. The contact is nice. Filling some strange void that had taken root with the momentary parting. She wants him close. Even closer still.

He teases her, the desire scraping at her insides screaming for his cure. She gives him a soft whimper. A frail plea for the end of his game. He tortures her further, however, his chuckle dark and low against her neck has he continues to rub against her behind. He wants her needing for him. Good and lost in the gnawing desire that threatens to reduce her to a puddle of herself. That is when he’ll strike. For now, mischievous fingers drift down and slip between her wanting folds. She gasps, thighs parting as much as her unconventional position will allow. He gifts her with generous strokes of her lower lips that leave her whining for more. She's too lost to feel that sharp fear anymore, it being snuffed out by desire and the rationalization of “if he wanted my death, then why would he waste time in making me feel so good?” 

He pulls his fingers free, taking generous handfuls of her bottom to give it a prying squeeze before grasping her by the hips. The only protest she manages is a gasp as her body is roughly jerked closer. She feels him in startling detail, his hips flush against her backside. An arm loops itself around her waist and she finds herself shifted to her knees, mirroring his body pressed close against hers. Under her hands she feels his arm, tightly wound around her middle. A shiver rips through his body and she feels it in high definition. 

Why did he tremble? There are a few shining moments of silence only permeated by their own breath. She breaks it. 

“Are… are you alright?” 

She feels ridiculous as soon as the question leaves her. Feels  _ wrong _ . But to her horror, the tiny apprehension within her ends up with just one more reason for hesitation. Her damnable concern, despite being directed at the likes of a killer, is genuine. Horrifically earnest. The absolute mortification is only punctuated by the brief silence before he speaks. Almost as if he noticed the ridiculous nature of the question as well: 

“Quiet.”

He retracts his hand to use it to angle himself for her entrance, the spongy, warm head of his cock rubbing against her slickened folds with just enough force to slightly part her. She sighs, hips wiggling against him in her desperation for more. Her body leans forward slightly, subconsciously slipping into a better angle for him to take her as they both ground against each other. For moments, they revel in the sensation of their warm, slickened flesh rubbing against each other. Feeling his member so close only makes her need grow, the knot in her belly tightening with each deliberate stroke against her. 

She momentarily loses her balance, bracing herself on her hands as she’s all but bent over before him. It’s a welcomed shift that allows her a bit more deviousness, growing more forceful and daring with her searching hips. For a moment, she almost forces him inside. It takes for him to steady her hips to keep her from taking the step prematurely. She’s just about ready to burst, uttering a desperate half-sob of a plea to him. 

He answers her prayer, applying just enough pressure so that he can gift her with the head of his cock inside her yearning hole. He leans into her hips, embedding himself entirely in her warmth. Her walls greet him upon his entry, tight and eager as they perfectly swaddle his length. The voluptuously full feeling leaves her breathless, hips squirming against her better senses. The stretch only brings her the smallest of discomfort, but the pleasure manages to drown out all else with an overwhelming volume. Her thoughts come and go like wind, her substance-altered state finally settling in as the warmth under her skin overtakes all else in her mind. For a second, he allows it, body still as she greedily fucks herself on his member, savoring the sensation of him dragging along her tight walls. . 

She doesn’t take note of the tremor of his body. Doesn’t have a clue how close he is to slipping into the tempest that is blind instinct. Different from what led him under the temple, or by the stream. Stronger. Frenzied and starving. Ever since he felt her soft body against him entirely, the ghastly urge nearly stole his control. In her he sees something easily breakable, yet something he did not want to break in his traditional sense. For a second, he felt the all encompassing desire to simply slip into the maddening frenzy and sink into her warmth until she begged him for an end. He wants to allow the demon to have its fill, regardless of whether or not it’s a storm she can endure. 

Yet, there is a nagging feeling akin to frustration towards himself for the pure and simple reason that he has allowed himself to be led by the nose by a mere  _ woman.  _

So much so that it nearly upheaved the carefully cultivated balance between man and demon within him. He’s learned to control his fury: it is something useful in this realm. The Entity encourages it, therefore he hones it just as he hones his blade. But this newfound frenzied lust rivaling that of a buck in its rut, is something novel. Wild and unchecked. In his mind, right at this moment, it looks more like a threat or weakness than just mere instinct. His hands moved on their own. His body responds to her heat, blood coursing as it demands a simple solution to the problem nestling itself within him. The demon is more animal in this moment, only craving release. It wants his hips to move. To sink into her warmth and fuck her as it and she desires. It will steal the reins and assume control if the man in him continues to falter. 

His hands take her hips, stilling them enough to establish his pace. He draws out slowly only to sink into her warmth once more, feeling every bump and ridge of his against every one of her own. A saccharine moan is pulled from her, elated that he is finally giving her what she desires. 

Soon he’s making her sing her praises, driving into her mercilessly as she forfeits the last of her lucidity. Her slick overflows, soaking the space of their joining and slipping down the length of her thighs. It punctuates their song of flesh meeting flesh, the lewd sound intermingling with her whining moans and his frenzied growls. 

He marvels at the body before him, the network of intersecting veins and arteries singing to him with its coursing blood. Her heart is almost as loud as her voice in this moment. Something so small, beating strongly in her cage of a chest. Something that could easily fit in the palm of his hand. 

He runs his fingers over the delicate sweep of her back, tracing the indent of her spine and the edges of the age-faded scars that littered her skin. His claws dance just over the expanse of her flesh, his exploration leading him further down. Further and further until he finds himself cupping the supple flesh of her behind. He gropes it, reveling in the malleable softness as he parts her to get a better glimpse of her center. 

He lets his thumb ghost over her the puckered orifice of her anus, and for a moment she’s shocked back into her senses. Her protest just barely breaches her sounds of pleasure. He gives her another sweet series of strokes with his member and she’s silenced immediately, voice caught in her throat as his head kisses her innermost depths. 

He helps himself, allowing his thumb to poke and prod at the opening. She whines. Her hand tries to limply swat him away from her shame, and he can’t help the low rumble of a chuckle in his throat at her mortification. She sings all the same when he finally embeds the digit, body trembling as it wrestles with the foreign sensation. 

It’s not long until her body goes stiff, muscles spasming all around him as the white hot ecstasy of release rips through her body. His grip on her hip grows too tight, but her protest only gets drowned out by the cry her pleasure elicits. Her body feels too warm. A strange shivering sensation dances over the surface of her skin and she’s left trembling, forehead resting on the forest floor as she huffs to regain her breath. 

He only allows her a moment before she’s guided to the forest floor with a heavy hand. His movement is frenzied. Starving as his roving hands flipped her onto her back. He overshadows her, his length in his hand as he centers himself and tries to step away from the precipice he’d just been rapidly nearing. He looms above her vulnerability, drinking in the sight of her disheveled countenance. Her hair mussed, stray locks sticking to her sweat-beaded temples. Dark breasts heave with each breath she drew and a thin sheen of sweat blankets her warm-colored skin, painted orange by the dim firelight of the camp. Her gaze matches his, eyes hooded and betraying her thinly-veiled apprehension. There is a single moment of hesitation there, yet she fights through it. Invites him in sweetly, drawing her legs up so that her knees nearly meet her chest. She openly splays herself before him, yet under the weight of his greedy stare, she grows bashful and finds it hard to continue matching his gaze. 

How coy… 

Nonetheless, her core calls for him, so glistening and wet that the hand that isn’t gripping his own manhood can’t help but reach forward and run through the nectar. She shivers under the touch, flesh still sensitive and vulnerable. He prods further, marveling at just how quickly she’s affected by just a simple touch once more. Even after it all, she still manages to match him in fervor.

Her breath catches as he gently presses her sensitive bud. Again, and she’s begging him.  _ “ _ Please... _ ”  _ she breathes. 

He doesn’t listen however, marveling at the way her lips quiver when he touches her. She wrenches her eyes shut as he rubs, fingers tracing slow, tantalizing circles around her clit. She bites back the moan, but as much as she loves feeling his merciless touch, she finds herself favoring one sensation over all else. She needs it. Craves it so much that she can’t help but plead to him. 

“ _ Please!”  _ She squeaks as he presses her bud sharply. He stops. Eyes her curiously through his impassive mask and waits for her to continue. Even through his fervor, a shred of his lucidity bides for patience despite the outburst. He’s curious to see what more his Bird desires, even after having ecstasy rip through her body so violently that it left her shaking. 

Her words are caught in her throat, even when she sees clearly that she has his attention. They’re slow to come out. “Please… I… I want you inside me again…” 

He hesitates, battling with the urge to simply overtake the woman. He’s unsure if she knows for what she asks. It should be of no consequence to him whether or not she could endure his storm. His blood boils and the instinct within him wants to merely bury himself in her warmth and make her body remember him far after he takes his leave. He wants to paint her inner sanctum with his seed, and while this overbearing, newly unlocked sentiment is something that threatens his balance to the point of unnerving him, he finds it hard to struggle against it. 

Perhaps it’s the face she wears: those eyes cast a spell on him time and time again with such a vehemence that it calls sorcery to question. Captivating him like a siren, he falls right into her sweet trap. 

At this point she seems more vixen than bird. He wouldn’t be surprised if her cunning nature never faltered to begin with. If she’s been playing seductress all along. How else could one of the quarry manage such a feat? Reducing him to that of an animal so that she may escape judgement at his hands. 

His fingers dance up the supple flesh of her midsection, taut skin pulled over a firm belly. He thinks of the blood and sinew, organs and bone that lie just underneath the protective layer. This beauty and its interwoven frailty, yet she tempts him. Waves her tail and flutters alluring eyes at him as if he cannot wrench the very life from her body. She’s gone mad. Or perhaps, he’s fallen into her trap, becoming slave to the wiles of a single woman. 

Something in him cannot bear to fight it, however. He would rather beat her at her own game, whatever game it may be.

She hangs onto his every move: awestruck. Pleading. Begging for reprieve from the wanting and the need. Her skin goes hot under the mere contact of being held by the neck. More comfortable a gesture than it should be. She’s content in his hold, like a dying woman in her last moments. If he kills her on a whim, decides to steal her very breath right then and there, she couldn’t even find the voice to protest. Death has become an evident truth. Unavoidable. Irrevocable. Dreading it does nothing for her here. No point in letting fear stain the few sweet moments she has. 

A mewl leaves her the moment he sinks into her, hips soon flush with her own. She’s unsure if the stretch would ever cease to leave her speechless. After another taste of the sweet friction of their joining, she’s giving him breathy praises. Bracing both hands on the ground on either side of her head, he steadies himself above her, sidling in between her spread thighs. She’s left swooning at the unrelenting pace he sets. 

It’s not long before she’s completely unable to contain herself. He’s bottoming out with every thrust, his growls frenzied and animalistic as he sates his own need within her. Together, they fall into their own chaotic rhythm. It feels as if he’s kissing her very womb with how far he submerged himself, determined to make her feel the full scope of whatever this feeling for her is. He’s quick to shift her hips, tilting them just so that he can better graze the center that leaves her wailing on him. 

She feels that she should be embarrassed. Would be if it weren’t for the fact that there wasn’t much room to be ashamed of the carnality between them. Were they not both only victims of circumstance in a nightmarescape, it would almost be poetic. Primordial, as if they were Adam and Eve just merely enjoying their divine union in the Garden. Unorthodox to be taken so mercilessly on a forest floor in a realm separate from reality, but it’s fine. He feels right inside her. 

Or maybe that is only loneliness rearing its ugly head. 

She finds herself falling back into the same lustful skirmish as before. Her breath comes out as ragged panting, mirroring his own animalistic grunts as he slips into something so primal and starving that she fears she may lose her mind because of it. 

It’s torturous. Blissful and all encompassing. She’s being swallowed whole by it. 

He grazes the spot again. Assaults it with remarkable precision that leaves her in shambles underneath him. Her hands finally find their places on him, the pleasure addling her mind so much that all of her reservations concerning her suspicious level of comfort with him have been silenced. Her nails dig little half moons into his back, but he pays no mind. He bears down on her with all of him, energetically rocking into her singing hips as she huffs and moans under him. She feels the coil within her tightening, each joining of their hips bringing her closer to her end. “I’m… I’m so close.” She manages to breathe her words through his ministrations, though her voice sounds alien to her. He hears her nonetheless, pinning both her hands to the ground beside her head as he completely overtakes her, masked face tucked into the curve of her neck as he growled his pleasure. The dark sound and close proximity sends fire through to her already molten core. 

She gets a moan from him- perhaps the way her muscles tense around him is particularly sweet. He retaliates in full, pace going erratic as his hips snap to hers with such vivacity that it leaves her legs trembling with the white hot orgasm. She keens into the night air, punctuating their lustful song as she lets the pleasure wash over her. He grunts against her, bombarding her with the last bout of his shaking, starving thrusts. She can only breathe through the onslaught, her abused center spasming around his cock. With a series of debased grunts that seem closer to growling, he gives her a few last strokes that kiss her womb, finally spilling his warm seed inside her without a second thought. He hilts himself one final time with a punctuated smack of his flesh against her own and savors her heat. 

Soon, all they have left are frenzied heartbeats and labored breath. He’s close, his body heavy as he slumps over her, but she doesn’t protest. She’s able to move her hands from under his now limp grasp. Though that’s all the movement he allows her, himself making no moves to release her from his cage of a body any time soon. She remembers their time at the temple. 

She finds it strange, but the prospect of him being a cuddler is simultaneously warming to consider. 

Almost as if he hears her thought, he remembers himself. Forces himself up so she’s allowed to breathe once more. The most she can muster is propping herself up on her elbows as he sits back opposed to her. He doesn’t leave her right away, instead opting for taking her by the thigh and keeping her legs spread to watch his seed spill out of her abused center. He gives a quiet hum of satisfaction, something about the sight sating something deep rooted within him that he hadn’t the words for. 

She gives a bashful little smile, expression peaceful as she finally spoke. “Thank you. It’s not unbearable anymore.” 

“Do not touch the flowers again, Bird. Lest you desire to suffer.” He tells her. 

“I’d hardly call that suffering.” She leans back, refreshing her body with a stretch now that he’s retracted his hand. “I’ll just wait ‘til you’re around.” 

He stares at her, almost taken aback by her brazenness. She gives a gentle smile, even though she cannot see his expression. She breathes a little laugh regardless, gentle like chimes on the wind. 

“I’ll accept that,” he finally relents, earning another chiming laugh from her. He tries to ignore the thought at the forefront of his mind. Tries not to admit how charming the woman manages to be time and time again. 

Her eyes flutter closed. She’s at peace, and for a moment he fears that she’ll fall asleep, exposed and in the open. No, he thinks. She wouldn’t be so foolish, would she? 

But when he rises, leaving her side to wash himself in the stream, she doesn’t move aside from the gentle rise and fall of her chest. Even when he’s halfway through redressing, the most she’s managed is shifting onto her side, body curled in an effort for warmth against the chill of the night breeze. 

Like a child, she’s fast asleep. Part of him finds some humor in the sight. The other is what drives him to nudge her backside with his foot. “Bird.” 

No answer. Her steady breaths don’t falter. 

He sighs, eyeing the sleeping beauty of a woman as he relents. Both demon and man are in agreement that the creature before him is too confusing to pin. Nuisance, insidious temptress, or simple woman after simple pleasures. He knows not what to call her. For now, he has no choice but to keep his present moniker. 

  
  


When she wakes long after he’s gone, she finds herself inside her shoddy little tent, shielded from the cool air outside. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Something strange is happening to our favorite demon. ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) 
> 
> Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas to all! Thank you all so much for reading and especially thank you to those that leave nice comments! Forgive me if there are any mistakes in this one. I proofread as much as I could!


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